The saucy, arrogant moustache sloped
dejectedly.
"I fancy you must have gone about it very badly," she said, pursing
her lips.
"Badly?" he gasped. "Why--why, good heavens, Sara, I actually pleaded
with her," he went on, quite pathetically. "All but got down on my
knees to her. Damn me, if I can understand myself doing it either.
I must have lost my head completely. Begged like a love-sick school-boy!
And she kept on saying no--no--no! And I, like a blithering ass,
kept on telling her I couldn't live without her, that I'd make her
happy, that she didn't know what she was saying, and--But, good
Lord, she kept on saying no! Nothing but no! Do--do you think she
meant to say no? Could it have been hysteria? She said it so often,
over and over again, that it might have been hysteria. I never
thought of that. I--"
"No, Leslie, it wasn't hysteria, you may be sure of that," she said
deliberately. "She meant it, old fellow."
He sagged deeper in the chair.
"I--I can't get it through my head," he muttered.
"As I said before, you did it badly," she said. "You took too much
for granted. Isn't that true?"
"God knows I didn't EXPECT her to refuse me," he exclaimed, glaring
at her. "Would I have been such a fool as to ask her if I thought
there was the remotest chance of being--" The very thought of the
word caused it to stick in his throat.
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