“And does my little sweetheart,” said he, with infinite patience, “believe that silly story?”
“Well,” she confessed, “of course I don’t exactly believe it, but the talk of the crowd hurts me. Then again, could you not study your art from a man?”
“Oh,” said Milton, thinking to himself that if jealousy was at the bottom of his sweetheart’s apparent anger, surely he could scent trouble ahead.
“Why don’t you answer?” she said.
“I was thinking.”
“You have no right to think. That is—I—well, I am almost beginning to hate Ouida Angelo.”
“Why, that is really absurd, little one.”
“Milton, I hate all things that seem to lead you from me.”
“Nothing, and no one, can do that,” said Milton.
“You are with her hours and hours; I almost forget how you look, I see you so seldom these days,” complained the girl.