"Mr. Ashton, what do you mean by it?" cried Ellen. "I have given up Harry: but you usually do your duty. Good gracious! I see three girls not dancing, though I always have more men on purpose. I don't know what you boys mean."
"Let us alone, Ashton and I, Nell—we've got something to talk about," said Harry.
His sister looked up half alarmed in his face.
"I declare since you've gone so much into business you're insupportable, Harry," she cried. It seemed to bring the two men a little closer to each other when she whisked off again into the crowd.
"It's quite true," said Harry, "let's go into the hall, where there's a little quiet. I do want awfully to talk to you. What do you think about Ned giving up that business all at once, when we both stood up to him about it? I was awfully grateful to you for standing by me. I scarcely expected it; but as for Ned giving in like that, I can scarcely believe it even now."
"It was not much like him, it must be confessed," Roland said.
"Like him! he never did such a thing in his life before; generally he doesn't even pay much attention to what one says. He has a way of just facing you down however you may argue, with a sort of a smile which makes me fit to dance with rage sometimes. But to-day he was as meek as Moses—What do you think? I—don't half like it, for my part."
"You think after all he was in the right perhaps?"
"No, I don't. I never could do that. To risk other people in that way is what I never would consent to. But a fellow who is so full of fight and so obstinate, to give in—that's what I don't understand."