“I assure you I don’t want to, but you understand, don’t you?” If she had looked at his face she would not have asked the last question. He did not understand; indeed, he had resolved not to. “No,” he said, “I must own, I don’t. If you told me that you _wanted_ to go, that would be one thing. I shouldn’t have a word to say then.” “Oh yes, you would, Ben,” said Crystal, but he did not notice her. “I can’t understand your allowing yourself to be dragged there against your will. You say you despise this life, but you seem to take it pretty seriously if you can’t break any engagement that you may make.” “How absurd you are! Of course I often break engagements.” “I see. You do when the inducement is sufficient. Well, that makes it all perfectly clear.” She felt both angry and inclined to cry. She knew that to yield to either impulse would instantly solve the problem and bring a very unreasonable young man to reason. She ran over both scenes in her imagination. Registering anger, she would rise and say that, really, Mr. Moreton, if he would not listen to her explanation there was no use in prolonging the discussion. That would be the critical moment. He would take her in his arms then and there, or else he would let her go, and they would drive in silence, and part at the little park, where of course she might say, “Aren’t you silly to leave me like this?”—only her experience was that it was never very practical to make up with an angry man in public. To burst into tears was a safer method, but she had a natural repugnance to crying, and perhaps she was subconsciously aware that she might be left, after the quarrel was apparently made up by this method, with a slight resentment against the man who had forced her to adopt so illogical a line of conduct. A middle course appealed to her. She laid her hand on Ben’s. A few minutes before it would have seemed unbelievable to Ben that his own hand would have remained cold and lifeless under that touch, but such was now the case. “Ben,” she said, “if you go on being disagreeable a second longer you must make up your mind how you will behave when I burst into tears.” “How I should behave?” She nodded. His hands clasped hers. He told her how he should behave. He even offered to show her, without putting her to the trouble of tears. “You mean,” she said, “that you would forgive me? Well, forgive me, anyhow. I’m doing what I think is right about this old dinner. Perhaps I’m wrong about it; perhaps you’re mistaken and I’m not absolutely perfect, but if I were, think what a lot of fun you would miss in changing me. And you know I never meant to abandon you for the whole evening. I’ll get away at half past nine and we’ll take a little turn.” So that was settled. CHAPTER III