Silence falls on them again; broken this time by Gerard, who, turning abruptly towards his companion, says, "You are not bored by my society, Miss Craven? Unless you are cast in a mould different from the rest of humanity, you must be bored by the society of the Misses De Grey. Why, then, were you so resolute this morning in rejecting the one and accepting the other? This is the problem that has been puzzling me for the last half mile."
She hangs her head like a scolded school-child.
"What was your motive?"
"A prudential one, partly," she answers, rallying her spirits. "I knew that in after life I should have small experience of T.-carts and such rich man's luxuries, so I thought it wiser not to run the risk of contracting a taste for them."
"How do you know what the experience of your after life may be?"
"One may argue from the known to the unknown; I can give a pretty shrewd guess."
"And was that your sole motive?"
"What does it matter to you whether it was or not?"
"Nothing; except that, to a philosophical mind like mine, woman and her caprices are an interesting psychological study. Did you ever hear of an essay of Addison's entitled 'Dissection of a Coquette's Heart?'"
"I am not a coquette," she cries, indignantly, answering the indirect accusation directly.