"By playing poker after the opera, you mean?"
"Perhaps, though not necessarily. You do not approve?"
"I approve of a woman or man following the bent of her or his own particular predilection," he answered, evasively. "If you approve of playing poker, I have nothing to say."
"But—"
"But—I should be very sorry," he said, sadly.
"You would—withdraw from that compact of friendship?"
"No; I should feel that you needed me all the more, and I should be in constant attendance, lest the moment should arrive in my absence when you might want my services most."
She looked up at him with a faint smile, into which she would have thrown more archness had the power to do so been given her, and exclaimed, playfully:
"You offer inducement rather than opposition."
He flushed and drew back slightly, something in word, or tone, or glance jarring upon his emotion. Somehow he preferred her coldest disdain to the remark that she had made, and yet there was nothing in it to give offense to any man.