"A compromise!" he ejaculated. "And what a one-sided one."
"Life is made up of compromises, is it not? I thought I was being very generous."
There was a gentle, plaintive cadence to her words which both charmed his ear and touched his sensibilities. Was she about to strike her flag in the last ditch out of sheer weariness at his bravado?
"My only wish would be to please you," he said with sudden earnestness.
Constance looked at him wonderingly, a little appalled at the change in his manner and speech. What had called forth their intensity? She became conscious that the blood was rising to her cheeks again, and that she had lost her composure a second time. For an instant Gordon gazed at her eagerly, as though he enjoyed her bewilderment, then with a return of gayety, he exclaimed:
"But I promise nothing—nothing."
He raised his hat and Constance, who had already entered the vestibule of her apartment-house, stood irresolute before ascending the stairs as one in a trance. She was displeased with herself; for the first time in her life it had seemed to her that her tongue and her wits were not under the control of her will. Presently she reflected that she might be working too hard and was run down, which on the whole, was comforting, until she looked in her mirror and saw there the refutation of this theory in her own hue of health. No, it could not be this, for there was no blinking the fact that she had improved notably in her appearance of late, which was comforting in a different way. She was so struck by the fact that she stood for a moment surveying her face and figure with contemplative surprise. But why had Mr. Perry been so queer? She asked herself that question more than once before she fell asleep, and in the morning ascribed it to her own social inaptness.
The next occasion when she spent the evening with Mrs. Perry was a fortnight later. When she was ready to go home Gordon put on his overcoat without a word and confronted her tantalizingly. She was conscious of a little disappointment, for, in spite of his declaration of independence, she had believed that he would not persist, but as he opened the front door she heard the welcome words:
"To-night I am going to comply with your wish by putting you on a car at the next corner."
"Thank you, very much." She forebore to add what was in her mind, that it was the only sensible way. But her little triumph gave elasticity to her steps.