“And then? Or pardon me, I don’t want you to tell me any more than it’s right for you to tell—any more than you feel like telling.”
“Oh that’s all right. Well, when we got outside it was the same old song. She didn’t care enough even to call me down. And like a fool I came out with it. What’s the use of telling what she said or what I said? It was just the same way. She kept me dancing. She wouldn’t say yes and she wouldn’t say no. She seemed anxious about only one thing. She wanted to know if she’d been fair to me.”
“I suppose she has—!” Kate brought this out as though he had put a question to her. “And you want to know what I think?”
“I sure do.”
“I think she cares—at least a little—shall I tell you all?”
Bertram, even in the hottest of this conversation, did not forget the needs of his body. 185 The waiter stood at his elbow. He rushed through the order, and continued:
“I want to know everything.”
“Well, to begin with—Bert Chester, you’re a man.”
“I didn’t ask for hot air.”
“That’s all of that. You’re an unfinished man. You—haven’t had the chance to get all the refinements which people like Eleanor Gray have acquired. Do you see now? You’ve made it—you’ve been making it—all for yourself. You had no fortune. It’s splendid the way you worked to get all these things. I know the story of how you got through college. Everyone who knows you is proud of that. But—well Eleanor’s mother was rich and proud before she married, and her grandparents were richer and prouder. Then she’s lived a great deal alone; and she never really blossomed out until she went abroad. So she learned her social ways from Europeans. She’s got a lot of British and Continental ideas.