She looked back, and said in a very commanding tone, and with an expression of authority upon her face:
“It’s useless for you to come. I shall go to bed in ten minutes. Good night.”
She nodded to them both, but Henry could not help noticing that her last nod was in his direction. Rodney sat down rather heavily.
His mortification was so obvious that Henry scarcely liked to open the conversation with some remark of a literary character. On the other hand, unless he checked him, Rodney might begin to talk about his feelings, and irreticence is apt to be extremely painful, at any rate in prospect. He therefore adopted a middle course; that is to say, he wrote a note upon the fly-leaf of his book, which ran, “The situation is becoming most uncomfortable.” This he decorated with those flourishes and decorative borders which grow of themselves upon these occasions; and as he did so, he thought to himself that whatever Katharine’s difficulties might be, they did not justify her behavior. She had spoken with a kind of brutality which suggested that, whether it is natural or assumed, women have a peculiar blindness to the feelings of men.
The penciling of this note gave Rodney time to recover himself. Perhaps, for he was a very vain man, he was more hurt that Henry had seen him rebuffed than by the rebuff itself. He was in love with Katharine, and vanity is not decreased but increased by love; especially, one may hazard, in the presence of one’s own sex. But Rodney enjoyed the courage which springs from that laughable and lovable defect, and when he had mastered his first impulse, in some way to make a fool of himself, he drew inspiration from the perfect fit of his evening dress. He chose a cigarette, tapped it on the back of his hand, displayed his exquisite pumps on the edge of the fender, and summoned his self-respect.
“You’ve several big estates round here, Otway,” he began. “Any good hunting? Let me see, what pack would it be? Who’s your great man?”
“Sir William Budge, the sugar king, has the biggest estate. He bought out poor Stanham, who went bankrupt.”
“Which Stanham would that be? Verney or Alfred?”
“Alfred.... I don’t hunt myself. You’re a great huntsman, aren’t you? You have a great reputation as a horseman, anyhow,” he added, desiring to help Rodney in his effort to recover his complacency.
“Oh, I love riding,” Rodney replied. “Could I get a horse down here? Stupid of me! I forgot to bring any clothes. I can’t imagine, though, who told you I was anything of a rider?”