"Ah," I exclaimed, "_his_ conversation is truly intellectual!"
She was quite vexed now.
"You are very unkind," she said. "You speak ill-naturedly of everybody,
and are cross with me on my birthday! I won't speak to you, Frank,
again this evening; there, see if I do!" and she turned away from me
with a tremble in her voice, and an indignant look in the, now,
flashing, grey eyes.
She kept her promise.
Much as I tried, when my ill-temper had subsided, to get speech with
her, I was not allowed a word. Even when leaving the house, I only
received a bow. She would not shake hands, to show that I was forgiven.
I had stopped to the very last in order to sit out Horner. _He_ would
not budge first, and _I_ would not budge first; so now we started off
together, our homeward routes being identical.
You may imagine that I felt very amicably disposed towards him. I was
ripe for a quarrel, or at least a separation; and Horner soon gave me an
opening.
He began to praise Min's looks and voice, and the manner in which she
had sung the songs _he_ had asked her for, including the one _he_ had
given her that evening.
Really, the cool impudence of Horner was something astounding! What
right had he to criticise her? He spoke just as if she belonged to him,
I assure you!
This was too much, after what I had already gone through.
"Which way are you going?" I asked him suddenly.
"Gaw-ing?" he said, in a surprised tone. "Why, stwaight on, of cawse--
stwaight on!"
"Then, I'm going round _here_!" I said, wheeling off abruptly at a
right angle from the road we had been pursuing, and going out of my way
in order to get rid of him.
Flesh and blood could no longer stand his unmeaning, yet gibing
platitudes.
"Bai-ey Je-ove!" he exclaimed. "But, stawp, my deah fellah. Lorton, I
asshaw you I only meant to say--ah--that Miss Clyde sang my songs most
divinely--ah--and that she's--ah--a vewy nice gahl--ah!"
Confound him!
What business had he to say or think anything of the sort?
I could faintly hear his voice exclaim "Bai-ey Je-ove!" in the distance,
after some seconds' interval, during which we had become widely
separated.