"Yes, I've an appointment—you understand," she answered, with a little shepherding movement of her hands.
But the next moment that too had turned into something else.
"Oh, you little fool!" Louie broke out, suddenly seeing. "You don't suppose I'm trying to get you out of the way so that I can meet him, do you? Good gracious, woman, he's never set foot in this place in his life, and I'll see he never does! Perhaps I wanted you to think he had—I don't know what I thought—with one and another of you I'm getting almost past thinking—but that's the truth anyway! Now are you satisfied? Or have you got the idea so thoroughly into your stupid little head that nothing will shake it? If you're going to spend your Saturday afternoons going round to every place you think might possibly——"
But the denial counted for nothing. Evie turned haughtily.
"Who's making the noise now? And why should I believe you? I knew before I came you'd say that——"
"Oh, how you try me!... I do say that. There's nothing else to say. Do you think if it was any other way I shouldn't boast of it, to you or anybody else? Why, how can you know so little of him—not to speak of myself——"
"You needn't talk as if you hadn't already had the cheek to tell me you loved him!"
"Did I? Upon my soul, I sometimes don't know whether I do or not! Say I don't—say I lied—say I sometimes almost hate him as much as I do you and you me."
"Oh, very likely, the grapes being sour," Evie scoffed.
"Then if they're sour——? What more do you want? Isn't that enough? And isn't it more than enough that I let you stand there and tell me so? Oh, I'm doing my best to warn you—you'll make a great mistake if you make me try to get him!" She stamped. "Won't you go?"