On
the contrary, he might inflict upon her, any day, the crowning
humiliation of declaring, be indifference of manner, that he had
found her out so thoroughly, as to entertain for her only feelings
of disgust and repugnance.
"Well," she concluded, recklessly, "why should I care what
he thinks? I have lived thus far without his good opinion, and I
can live a little longer, I imagine. I have had a good time for
eighteen years after my own fashion, and I will just ignore him
and have a good time still. Indeed I'll shock him to-night and
to-morrow so thoroughly, that he won't come near me again; for
I'm sick of his superior airs. I'm sick of his learned talk about
books, pictures, and politics, as if a young society girl were
expected to know about these things; and as for his small talk, it
reminded me of an elephant trying to dance a jig;" and she sprang
up with a snatch of song from the "opera bouffe," and began her
toilet for dinner.
In a few moments, however, she dropped her hairbrush absently, and
forgot to look at her fair face in the mirror.
"I wonder," she mused, "if he and Miss Burton ever met before they
came here? It has been a strange coincidence that she should have
felt such a sudden indisposition in each instance at the same moment
that his name was casually mentioned.
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