Eve was too furious to pay attention to anything but her deleterious thoughts. As she walked on the terrace, to which she had fled in quest of solitude, her teeth were set and her blue eyes glowed belligerently. As Miss Peavey would have put it in one of her colloquial moods, she was mad clear through. For Eve was a girl of spirit, and there is nothing your girl of spirit so keenly resents as being made a fool of, whether it be by Fate or by a fellow human creature. Eve was in the uncomfortable position of having had this indignity put upon her by both. But, while as far as Fate was concerned she merely smouldered rebelliously, her animosity towards Psmith was vivid in the extreme.
A hot wave of humiliation made her writhe as she remembered the infantile guilelessness with which she had accepted the preposterous story he had told her in explanation of his presence at Blandings in another man’s name. He had been playing with her all the time—fooling her—and, most unforgivable crime of all, he had dared to pretend that he was fond of her and—Eve’s face burned again—to make her—almost—fond of him. How he must have laughed . . .
Well, she was not beaten yet. Her chin went up and she began to walk quicker. He was clever, but she would be cleverer. The game was not over . . .
“Hallo!”
A white waistcoat was gleaming at her side. Polished shoes shuffled on the turf. Light hair, brushed and brilliantined to the last possible pitch of perfection, shone in the light of the stars. The Hon. Freddie Threepwood was in her midst.
“Well, Freddie?” said Eve resignedly.
“I say,” said Freddie in a voice in which self-pity fought with commiseration for her. “Beastly shame you aren’t coming to the hop.”
“I don’t mind.”
“But I do, dash it! The thing won’t be anything without you. A bally wash-out. And I’ve been trying out some new steps with the Victrola.”
“Well, there will be plenty of other girls there for you to step on.”