“You’re mistaken,” said Jane, who was in truth looking very pale. “I never felt less nervous in my life, and we mustn’t let the book suffer. Now, if you’ll repeat the question—I’m afraid”—penitently—“I wasn’t paying much attention to what you were saying.”
“Oh, well, I fancy you caught the idea of the sort of man I sketched. Would you give up everything for his sake, if you loved him?”
Jane rose and deliberately pinned on her hat, leisurely consulting a tiny chatelaine mirror after she had done so. Then she looked at Ormsby maliciously.
“Give up! Thank you, no! You see, all my life I’ve been giving up things I couldn’t wrest from the Willoughbys or De Mille.
“Not any more in mine, if you please. I should say to that misguided and frightfully sentimental young man: ‘Mend your ways, become rich and famous, and then come back and Jane will consider you.’” She picked up her gloves and walked toward the door of the bungalow.
“Au revoir,” she said; “so good of you to have saved my life.”
“At least,” observed Ormsby, sarcastically, as he hastened to open it for her, “nobody can accuse you of being inconsistent.”
“Billie Scott would shriek if he heard you say so,” observed Jane, as she calmly nodded good-by.
CHAPTER VIII.
Billie Scott had come down for the week end, and he and Jane were motoring.