“There, don’t be angry. Tell me how you did get away?”
“If you must know—I just bolted.”
“Paul!”
“Couldn’t help it. Just had to. Sorry if it was uncouth and all that—but there are limits to human endurance!”
“Now who’s hard on Amelia?”
Paul grinned unwillingly.
“I guess you were about right. The whole time I was with her, she was picking on things about people—all the other girls who were the least bit pretty. Not plain, straight-forward out-and-out wallops, mind you, but all sorts of sweet and sly—”
“Oh, I know her way. And did you just up and leave her?”
“No. We pranced around a while, and then she sat down, and made me fan her. And then we pranced around some more—until I thought I was going to die, and she kept talking—first about what she thought about girls nowadays, and then about poetry—you can imagine about how much I had to say to that sort of stuff. And then we pranced around some more, and by that time I’d concluded that I had only myself to rely on”—this with renewed bitterness, “so I told the woman that I had a—a weak heart, and guessed I’d better get a little air—”
“Paul, you didn’t!” cried Jane, horrified.