"N-no, I'm not." He began to laugh: "What's the matter, Valerie? What is on your mind? Have you any serious fidgets, or are you just a spoiled, pretty girl?"
"Spoiled, Kelly. There's nothing really the matter. I just felt like—what you asked me to do—"
She jumped up suddenly, biting her lips with vexation: "I don't know what I'm saying—except that it's rather rude of me—and I've got to go home. Good-night—I think my hat is in the dressing-room—"
He stood uneasily watching her pin it before the mirror; he could just see her profile and the slender, busy hands white in the dusk.
When she returned, slowly drawing on her long gloves, she said to him with composure:
"Some day ask me again. I really would like it—if you would."
"Do you really think that you could stand the excitement of taking a cup of weak tea with me," he said, jestingly—"after all those jolly dinners and suppers and theatres and motor parties that I hear about?"
She nodded and held out her hand with decision:
"Good-night."
He retained her hand a moment, not meaning to—not really intending to ask her what he did ask her. And she raised her velvet eyes gravely: