Mr. Richards: “I’m glad to hear that there are yet depths to which you think me incapable of descending, and that Miss Watervliet is one of them. I will now take a little higher ground. Perhaps you think I flirted with Mrs. Dawes. I thought, myself, that the thing might begin to have that appearance, but I give you my word of honor that as soon as the idea occurred to me, I dropped her—rather rudely, too. The trouble was, don’t you know, that I felt so perfectly safe with a married friend of yours. I couldn’t be hanging about you all the time, and I was afraid I might vex you if I went with the other girls; and I didn’t know what to do.”
Miss Galbraith: “I think you behaved rather silly, giggling so much with her. But”—
Mr. Richards: “I own it, I know it was silly. But”—
Miss Galbraith: “It wasn’t that; it wasn’t that!”
Mr. Richards: “Was it my forgetting to bring you those things from your mother?”
Miss Galbraith: “No!”
Mr. Richards: “Was it because I hadn’t given up smoking yet?”
Miss Galbraith: “You know I never asked you to give up smoking. It was entirely your own proposition.”
Mr. Richards: “That’s true. That’s what made me so easy about it. I knew I could leave it off any time. Well, I will not disturb you any longer, Miss Galbraith.” He throws his overcoat across his arm, and takes up his travelling-bag. “I have failed to guess your fatal—conundrum; and I have no longer any excuse for remaining. I am going into the smoking-car. Shall I send the porter to you for anything?”
Miss Galbraith: “No, thanks.” She puts up her handkerchief to her face.