Part 83

"That," she observed, "would have been the very height of impertinence."

Opening her book again, she indulged him with a view of the most exquisite profile he had ever dreamed of.

She despised him; there seemed to be no doubt about that. He despised himself; his offence, stripped by her of all extenuation, appeared to him in its own naked hideousness; and it appalled him.

"As a matter of fact," he said, "there's nothing criminal in me. I never imagined that a man could appear to such disadvantage as I appear. I'll go. There's no use in hoping for pardon. I'll go."

Studying her book, she said, without raising her eyes, "I am offended--deeply hurt--but--"

He waited anxiously.

"But I am sorry to say that I am not as deeply offended as I ought to be."

"That is very, very kind of you," he said, warmly.

"It is very depraved of me," she retorted, turning a page.

After a silence, he said, "Then I suppose I must go."

It is possible she did not hear him; she seemed engrossed, bending a little closer over the book on her knee, for the shadows of blossom and foliage above had crept across the printed page.

All the silence was in tremulous vibration with the hum of bees; the perfume of the flowers grew sweeter as the sun sank towards the west, flinging long, blue shadows over the grass and asphalt.

A gray squirrel came hopping along, tail twitching, and deliberately climbed up the seat where she was sitting, squatting beside her, paws drooping in dumb appeal.

"You dear little thing!" said the girl, impulsively. "I wish I had a bonbon for you! Have you anything in the world to give this half-starved squirrel, Mr. Tennant?"

"Nothing but a cigarette," muttered Tennant. "I'll go out to the gate if you--" He hesitated. "They generally sell peanuts out there," he added, vaguely.

"Squirrels adore peanuts," she murmured, caressing the squirrel, who had begun fearlessly snooping into her lap.

Tennant, enchanted at the tacit commission, started off at a pace that brought him to the gate and back again before he could arrange his own disordered thoughts.

She was reading when he returned, and she cooled his enthusiasm with a stare of surprise.

"The squirrel? Oh, I'm sure I don't know where that squirrel has gone. Did you really go all the way to the gate for peanuts to stuff that overfed squirrel?"

He looked at the four paper bags, opened one of them, and stirred the nuts with his hand.

"What shall I do with them?" he asked.

Then, and neither ever knew exactly why, she began to laugh. The first laugh was brief; an oppressive silence followed--then she laughed again; and as he grew redder and redder, she laughed the most deliciously fresh peal of laughter he had ever heard.

"This is dreadful!" she said. "I should never have come alone to the Park! You should never have dared to speak to me. All we need to do now is to eat those peanuts, and you have all the material for a picture of courtship below-stairs! Oh, dear, and the worst part of it all is that I laugh!"

"If you'd let me sit down," he said, "I'd complete the picture and eat peanuts."

"You dare not!"

He seated himself, opened a paper bag, and deliberately cracked and ate a nut.

"Horrors! and disillusion! The idol of the public--munching peanuts!"

"You ought to try one," he said.