“What was the matter with her? She wasn’t a bit like that before—she seemed so gentle and unspoiled and kind. Hang it, there’s no way of understanding what a girl really is like, anyhow. I’ve just been an idiot.”
After a moment or two, he told himself fiercely,
“Well, if she doesn’t want to dance with me, I certainly shan’t bother her.”
A little later, he threw away his cigar, and went in again. But he did not dance. He sat and talked pleasantly to Mrs. Webster for twenty minutes or so, and then joined his host by the fire, with whom he discussed agriculture and politics for the rest of the evening.
In the meantime, Paul, deserted by Jane, had managed to extricate himself from the toils of the fair Amelia, and possessed by a deep sense of injury, had climbed up again to the hayloft, with the double purpose of expressing his indignant feelings to Jane, and getting well out of the reach of his recent partner.
“Well, I must say—if that’s the way you keep a bargain—” he began. Jane looked around at him with an abstracted expression, and then unable to control herself at the sight of his aggrieved face, burst into the most unsympathetic laughter.
“Oh, you poor creature! I am sorry! I forgot all about you!”
“Do you think you’re giving me fresh information?” inquired Paul, in tones of bitterest sarcasm.
“How did you get away?”
“Much you care!”