"Sufficiently," she said, disgusted. "But I suppose this sort of thing is nothing unusual for you."
"I've hooked one or two people," he admitted, reddening. "I suppose you won't bother to forgive me, but I'm terribly sorry. If you'll let me put a little mud on it——"
She disdained to reply. He hovered about her, clumsily solicitous, and whichever way she turned, he managed to get underfoot, until, thoroughly vexed, she stood stock-still and opened her arms with a hopeless gesture:
"What are you trying to do, Delancy? Do you want to embrace me? I wish you wouldn't leap about me like a great Dane puppy!"
The red surged up into his face anew:
"I beg your pardon," he said. "I'm very sorry."
She looked at him curiously: "I beg yours—you big, silly boy. Don't blush at me. Great Danes are exceedingly desirable property, you know.... Did you wish to be forgiven for anything? What on earth are you doing with that horrid fistful of muck?"
"I only want to put some mud on that wound, if you'll let me. It's good for hornet stings——"
She laughed and backed away: "Do you believe there is any virtue in mud, Delancy?—good, deep mire—when one is bruised and sore and lonely and desperate? Oh, don't try to understand—what a funny, confused, stupid way you have of looking at me! I remember you used to look at me that way sometimes—oh, long ago—before I was married, I think."
The heavy colour which surged so readily to his temples began to amuse her; she leaned back against the bridge rail and contemplated him with smiling disdain.