Page:Claire Ambler (1928).djvu/149

 I? I've just told you it didn't make the slightest difference. We were dancing, and I doubt if he even noticed what I said. As a matter of fact, I'm positive he didn't. I'm not wholly an idiot, Mr. Orbison!" She spoke with agitation and there was a smarting threat of tears in her eyes, in spite of her. This was not at all the conversation she had expected to hold with the invalid gentleman when she had bravely left the pergola to speak to him; and she was bewildered, even chagrined. "I really am not an idiot," she said. "I'm not—even though I see you think I am!"

"No, no"

"You do!" she said huskily, her emotion increasing. "Of course you do! You think I've done harm."

He lifted a thin hand in protest. "No, no! I hope you haven't."

"Ah! That means you do think so! That's what your watching me and thinking about me, ever since you came here, amounts to! I asked you to tell me what you thought of me, and I get what I deserve for being a bold enough idiot to ask you such a question! You've looked me well over and you've decided I'm a fool!"

Distressed, for she spoke passionately, he gently