He took the bag, opened it, and extracted a brass check. He flipped it, caught it, and looked at her. She was repairing the damage done by the tears. “I wish you wouldn’t go,” he said.
Audrey smiled unsteadily. “Only thing to do, I think.”
“No. No, it isn’t, Audrey. I hurt your feelings fearfully—and I’d like to make amends. You hurt mine—and you want to hide. I know how that is. But I’ll give you a challenge. If you, also, want to make amends you’ll stay here. We’ll sit in this little room and bicker for a while. Then I’ll take you back to those clowns, the guests of my family.
You and I will dance and have fun and that will help me infinitely to avoid the many mokes.”
She was still half smiling, but she shook her head. “It’s no good. We disagree so terribly about everything. And you must despise me—besides.”
“I couldn’t despise you, whatever you thought,” he answered. “Two reasons. You look so much like Ellen, for one. And the other is the way you cried when I—struck you—just now. It was as mean as a blow, anyway—”
“It wouldn’t do any good, honestly.”
“On the contrary. Lemme see.” He grinned charmingly. “I’ll appeal to you in an abstract way. You’re probably up to your ears in various kinds of social work. Bundles for Britain and whatnot?”
She nodded. “It’s so silly, so trivial—”
“Well, here I am, a civilian veteran. Home on a sort of pseudo furlough. In the case of veterans they usually turn out the town’s prettiest girls as dancing partners, companions, whatnot. Suppose we say that I requisition you? We’ll be—by all odds—the handsomest couple on the floor. You’d raise the index so much—”