While she struggled for calmness he smiled coldly and said:
“I am very glad that you are recovered from your slight injury, but do not trouble yourself to go out too soon to show Miss Winton the sights of the city. I shall have ample leisure to escort her around, and shall find the greatest pleasure in doing so,” and, with a parting bow that chilled her with its coldness, he took an abrupt leave.
He could not have borne the pain of this meeting a moment longer—not one; but she misunderstood him, as he intended. His pride and his jealousy of Hamilton were up in arms. She should not know he cared.
He hurried out with Ada, and poor, humiliated Eva stood there drooping among the flowers like a crushed lily.
CHAPTER XXXI.
“WE SHALL MEET AGAIN!”
Doctor Ludington, hurrying away from Fifth Avenue, would not take a cab to the hospital. He preferred to walk the long distance in the nipping cold of the December night, and thus cool the fever of unrest burning in his veins.
He felt a passionate anger against Eva for her seeming coldness and indifference, for so well had the poor girl worn her mask of pride that it appeared to him quite genuine. He was full of angry resentment at what seemed to him the cruelest inconstancy and forgetfulness.
How cool and calm she had been, while he was sure that he had betrayed his own heart by his very endeavors to hide it. He wondered how she could have transferred her love so quickly from him to the handsome young New Yorker that rumor assigned as her betrothed.
He resolved angrily that she should never know how she had wounded him by her heartlessness. She should not think he was wearing the willow for her sake.