"Didn't he tell you?"
"Oh, yes," the answer came wearily; "he told me; but he told me because he thought he had given me to expect it. It was noblesse oblige—not love."
"Noblesse fiddlesticks! I don't believe a word of it."
"Oh well," said Elise, looking up, "he said it was just as well that I refused him, there's no mistaking that."
"Oh, certainly, after you refused him. What did you expect?"
"I expected him to—no, I didn't. I didn't expect anything. Southern men are so—" Elise stopped. She was about to be unjust to Rutledge.
"But come, let's go," she said, rising from her chair. "Are all the people here?"
"All except Senator Richland, and he never fails me," Lola answered.
"I don't want to see that man to-night," said Elise; and yet she joined the other guests appearing nothing other than her usual self save for the added brightness of her eyes, and when Senator Richland managed finally to isolate her she gave him quite the most interesting twenty minutes of his life.
When the company was broken up, Elise, who was stopping over night with Lola, avoided the customary heart to heart talk by asking for a pen and paper with which to write a letter. Mrs. Hazard was consumed with desire to hear all about it, but she deferred her inquiries with good grace as she argued that a note written by Elise at such an unearthly hour could be only to Rutledge, and must, therefore, be important.