She looked at him in a manner which simply denied the words she spoke. He thought to himself “This is feminine resistance,” and sought to embrace her. But she pushed him away gently.
“No, dear. Think it over; you will understand then.”
They talked on for some time—Conrad very ill at ease, Betty quite delighted with the situation. She felt no compassion for him. He was such a stupid man not to realize these things. After an hour or so he left, to think it over.
He had no sooner gone than Charles arrived, breathlessly, and wanted to know if Betty could go on a party that night.
She laughed at his young enthusiasm. “What kind of a party?” she asked.
“Oh, just you and I—down to Greenwich Village. We could go to the Green Wagon and dance and have a little punch—I know them down there.”
The temptation was almost overpowering. Ordinarily she might have gone. “Why, Charlie,” she exclaimed, “how perfectly absurd! How could I think of being seen in a place like that—alone—with you?”
Charles grinned, in spite of his disappointment, and said that she wasn’t likely to be “seen” by anybody she knew—“unless you are in the habit of going there,” he added.
“Well, I’m not! And I don’t think you ought to have asked me. I think it’s something of an insult.” Upon which she pouted her lips just a trifle and fingered one of the books on the table.
To Charles this seemed the extreme of perversity. He gazed at her for some time without knowing whether to become angry or humble. To most young lovers, the situation would have called for a certain amount of humility, inasmuch as the lady seemed to consider herself deeply insulted. We venture the opinion that the reader would have asked Betty’s pardon and offered his services in some other and more refined amusement. In other words, most of us with Charles’ meagre experience in matters of love, would have taken a healthy bite to the hook. But Charles was impetuous and possessed of a quick temper, which, while it never lasted for any length of time, often asserted itself in precarious situations. It had already ducked him into much hot water and had been the cause of a broken engagement with a young Boston girl, who, far from having Betty’s nice scruples, was too much devoid of them in the eyes of her lover. Meanwhile, we have left Charles and Betty standing there silent. And the former, being keenly disappointed (for he had come there to offer her nothing but the best intentions) suddenly looked up and said, “Well, I’m sorry you see it that way.—So long.” Whereupon he turned and left the house.