Now to be merely reverential to a woman who is in love with you is to provoke impatience, anger and tears. On the other hand, to see a woman in tears because you will not permit her to humiliate herself is to have the other half of an impossible situation. It was one luncheon-time (the Honourable Emily now lunched frequently at the studio) that the tears came.
"Oh, you don't care for me—you don't care for me!" she sobbed.
Buck could not truthfully have said that he did care for her; but there she was before him, in tears.
"If it were that Dragon girl, now——"
Buck, while not failing to see the force of this, could only make imploring movements for the Honourable Emily to calm herself. Presently she did calm herself, sufficiently to change her tone to one of irony.
"Do you read your Bible?" she shot over her shoulder.
"Yes, miss," said Buck—"that is—I mean——"
The reason for Buck's hesitation was that he had suddenly doubted whether the Honourable Emily would know a Racing Calendar by the name she had just used.
"Do you mean The Bible, miss?" he said, fidgeting.
She snapped: "Yes—the one with the story of Joseph in it——"