"But you did."
"I merely meant that you should infer——"
"I inferred it all right," he said bitterly.
Perplexed, not knowing how to encounter such an unexpected reproach, vaguely distressed by it, she instinctively attempted to clear herself.
"Please listen. I hadn't any idea of mortifying you by explaining that you are not qualified by nature to interest the modern woman in——"
He turned a bright red.
"Do you suppose such a condemnation—such a total ostracism—is agreeable to a man? . . . Is there anything worse you can say about a man than to inform him that no woman could possibly take the slightest interest in him?"
"I didn't say that. I said the modern woman——"
"You're all modern."
"It is reported that there are still a few women sufficiently old-fashioned to——"