“Are you coming to dinner?”
“I had expected to.”
“Could you come now?”
“Where are you?”
“Why, at home, of course.”
“Alone?”
“Alone!——” she repeated. “Why, yes, of course I am alone. I said seven, but I want you now. I can’t wait. Do you mind?”
“All right,” he said drily. At such moments, in most young men in love, the asinine instinct dominates.
Still chilled by the unpleasant impression of an intimacy, the natural existence of which he had never thought about, he went to his room and got into a dinner jacket, sulkily.
As he was dressing it occurred to him that this was one sample of the sort of thing he was very likely to encounter. A rush of boyish jealousy and resentment flushed his face—irritation that the world should entertain any doubt as to his proprietary right in this girl.