She sat down and began to eat in silence, but as she did so, she studied him furtively.  She was used to many different kinds of masculine bad temper; her father’s irritability whenever anything affected his personal comfort:  and from other men all forms of jealousy and hurt feelings.  But this stern indifference to her as a human being was something a little different.  She decided on her method.

“Oh, dear,” she said, “this meal couldn’t be much drearier if we were married, could it?”

“Except,” he returned, unsmilingly, “that then it would be one of a long series.”

“Not as far as I’m concerned,” she answered.  “I should leave you on account of your bad temper.”

“If I hadn’t first left you on account of—­”

“Of burning the cereal?”

“Of being so infernally irresponsible about it.”

“Oh, that’s the trouble, is it?” she said.  “That I did not seem to care?  Well, I assure you that I don’t like burnt food any better than you do, but I have some self-control.  I wouldn’t spoil a whole evening just because—­” A sudden inspiration came to her.  Her voice failed her, and she hid her face in her pocket handkerchief.

Riatt leant back in his chair and looked at her, looked at least at the back of her long neck, and the twist of her golden hair and the occasional heave of her shoulders.

The strange and the humiliating thing was that she had just as much effect upon him when he quite obviously knew that she was insincere.

“Why,” he said gently, “are you crying?  Or perhaps I ought to say, why are you pretending to cry?”

She paid no attention to the latter part of his question.

“You’re so unkind,” she said, careful not to overdo a sob.  “You don’t seem to understand what a terrible situation this is for me.”

“In what way is it terrible?”

“Don’t you know that a story like this clings to a girl as long as she lives?  That among the people I know there will always be gossip—­”

“You’re not serious?”

She nodded, still behind her handkerchief, “Yes, I am.  This will be something I shall have to live down, as much as you would if you had robbed a bank.”

She now raised her head, and wiping her eyes hard enough to make them a little red, she glanced at him.

Really she thought it would save a great deal of time and trouble, if he could just see the thing clearly and ask her to marry him now.

But apparently his mind did not work so quickly.

“Who will repeat it?” he said.  “Not the Usshers—­”

“Nancy Almar won’t let it pass.  She’ll have found the evening dull without you, and she’ll feel she has a right to compensation.  And that worm, Wickham; it will be his favorite anecdote for the rest of his life.  I was horrible to him last night at dinner.”

“Sorry you were?”

“Not a bit.  I’d do it again, but I may as well face the fact that he won’t be eager to conceal his own social triumphs for the sake of my good name.  Can’t you hear him, ’Curious thing happened the other day—­at my friends the Usshers’.  Know them?  A lovely country place—­’—­”