"Of course I like them, but I've been very busy." Warry stared ahead of him across the dim starlit golf grounds.
"That's very nice," she said, still tapping the floor and looking past him into the night. "Industry is always an excuse for any one. But, come to think of it, you were very good in showing them about at the ball. I appreciate it, I'm sure."
It was of his conduct at the ball that he wished to speak; she knew it, and tried to make it hard for him.
"See here, Evelyn, you know well enough why I kept away from you that night. I told you before the ball that I didn't,—well, I didn't like it! If I hadn't cared a whole lot it wouldn't have made any difference—but that show was so tawdry and hideous—"
Evelyn readjusted her cape and sat down on the veranda railing.
"Oh, I was tawdry, was I?" she asked, sweetly. "I knew some one would tell me the real truth about it if I waited."
"I didn't come here to have you make fun of me," he said, bitterly. He imagined that since the ball he had been suffering a kind of martyrdom.
Evelyn could not help laughing.
"Poor Warry!" she exclaimed in mock sympathy. "What a hard time you make yourself have! Just listen to Mr. Foster laughing on the other side of the porch; it must be much cheerfuller over there." Mr. Foster was the young man from Keokuk; he wore a secret society pin in his cravat, and Warry hated him particularly.