"
"Say, now, stop fooling. You like me and-"
"I don't. I hate you, and if you don't clear out I'll call father. You're
one o' these kind o' men that think if a girl looks at 'em that they
want to marry 'em. I tell you I don't want anything more to do with
you, and I'm engaged to another man, and I wish you'd attend to
your own business. So there! I hope you're satisfied."
Claude sat for nearly a minute in silence, then he rose. "I guess
you're right. I've made a mistake. I've made a mistake in the girl."
He spoke with a curious hardness in his voice. "Good evening,
Miss Kennedy."
He went out with dignity and in good order. His retreat was not
ludicrous. He left the girl with the feeling that she had lost her
temper and with the knowledge that she had uttered a lie.
He put his horses to the buggy with a mournful self-pity as he saw
the wheels glisten. He had done all this for a scornful girl who
could not treat him decently. 'As he drove slowly down the road he
mused deeply. It was a knock-down blow, surely. He was a just
man, so far as he knew, and as he studied the situation over he
could not blame the girl. In the light of her convincing wrath he
comprehended that the sharp things she had said to him in the past
were not make-believe-not love taps, but real blows.
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