Instantly her face fell adorably. In its expression I fancied I detected both indignation against her misinformant and mortification that her dear little attempt at social competence had failed.
"Oh!... I'm so sorry!" she murmured, all dejection and shame and rich colour. "Please forgive me!"
"It isn't true," I said, "that—that I am actually engaged to be married."
Like a flash she was all eagerness again. She had a book in her hand, not a college text-book but a novelette; and probably the whole of the novelette was in her glad change of tone. I was not exactly engaged to be married, but I was in love, and I daresay her brain was already a jumble of surmises about obstinate parents, secret wills, marriages de convenance, and true and severed young hearts.
"Oh!" she said again. "I'm so—I mean I hope I shall soon be able to—I mean I hope I'm not rude if I——" She floundered, already out of her depth.
"Not at all," I said gravely. "I only said I was not formally engaged. There are—other reasons for congratulation after all——"
"Oh, then I do!" she cried impulsively, with a grateful look that I had helped her out. "I'm so glad!"
Then, her ordeal over, she glanced towards the door.
But a daring impulse seized me. This was on a Friday night, and I knew that on the morrow she was going to Guildford.
"I see you're just leaving," I said. "Would it annoy you if I were to walk a little way with you?"