“Lady Amy and I were beaten at the last hole,” Ivy answered. “Give me a hand over the stile, Eric; I’ve blistered my foot.”
“All well?,” he asked in a whisper.
“Ye-es,” she answered doubtfully. “I had one bad moment. He—you know—came up and pretended to look for my ball. He told me that he wanted to have five minutes’ talk with me some time; he said he’d invited himself here specially for that. I told him as politely as I could that I never wanted to speak to him again.”
“What happened then?,” asked Eric.
“He said it would take less than five minutes. I said it could do no good. He said that I couldn’t tell till I knew what he was going to say... Then I said, ‘If I give you five minutes, will you promise not to bother me ever again?’”
Eric found his eyebrows involuntarily rising in uneasy wonder. Ivy had shewn herself so much less valiant with Gaymer than she had boasted beforehand; she seemed to be cowed by him, so that she bargained and begged for mercy instead of standing up for herself.
“And then?”
“Well, he wouldn’t promise. He just repeated ‘Will you give me five minutes?’ I told him I’d think it over. Eric, can’t you explain—?”
He shook his head quickly:
“No, my dear! You can refuse to see him, if you think it’ll upset you; or you can see him and tell him that everything’s over.”