"Where did you hear that word?" he demanded roughly.
"From Lolly—and the girls at the Y. W. C. A. Oh, don't you suppose I know what that means?" I was looking straight at him now, and I saw his face turn red, but whether with anger or embarrassment, I do not know. He said in a sort of suppressed way:
"Don't you know that men who keep women are their lovers?"
I nodded.
He sat up stiffly now, and he gave me a cold, almost sneering, look that made me shiver. Then he said:
"Have I ever given you the slightest reason to suppose I wanted to be your lover?"
I shriveled up not only at his words, but at his look, and I turned my face away, and looked out of the window of the cab without seeing anything. It was true he had never pretended to care for me. I was the one who had done all the caring, and now it almost seemed as if he were throwing this up to me as something of which to be ashamed. But though my face was burning, I felt no shame, only a sort of misery.
"Well?" he prompted me, for I had not answered that last brutal query. Without looking at him, I said, in a shaking little voice, for I was heartbroken to think that he could use such a tone to me or look at me in that way:
"No, you haven't. In fact, if you had, perhaps I might have done what you wanted."