St. George Beresford had not spoken a word during the whole conversation, though his eager, admiring eyes had scarcely left Floy’s lovely flower-like face. He was silent, abstracted, bitterly piqued at Floy’s pronounced indifference to himself.
She had not seemed to see him since the first glance in which she had acknowledged their introduction by Otho Maury, and of course he could not know that it was because Otho had said to her at the cottage gate last night:
“My sister Maybelle will be at the picnic to-morrow with her handsome betrothed—the rich New Yorker she is to marry this fall. She is as jealous of him as a little Turk, and it makes her angry for any other girl to even look at him.”
He had counted rightly on Floy’s high sense of honor.
She was a mischievous little madcap, but she respected Maybelle’s rights, and feigned indifference to Beresford, although she could not avoid noticing the ardent glance he threw in her direction, and she thought, indignantly:
“No wonder Maybelle is jealous, for I can see already that he’s a wretched flirt. I won’t even look at him, though he is awfully, awfully handsome!”
So with a sigh, whose subtle meaning she could not understand, she turned her back on the wretched Beresford, and entered readily into an animated conversation with Otho, maddening her silent admirer with such keen jealousy that he could bear it no longer.
“Let us go and dance,” he said to Maybelle, hoarsely.
“Oh, I’m too lazy to move. Go and find another partner,” she laughed.
“But I’m not acquainted with any of the girls here.”