“What—and you making love as you have been?”
“I can do better now. I really am quite charmed with the game. I’d like to make love to you—for a long time.”
“Most flattering, Mr. van Tuiver—but how about me? We’ve conversed a lot already, and you haven’t said one interesting thing.”
“Not one—excepting one or two that have been insolent.”
There was a pause. “Really,” he pleaded, “that is a hard thing to say!”
“Do you mean,” she inquired, coldly, “that you have not realized the meaning of what you said to me when we met on the street?”
“I don’t know just what you refer to,” he replied, “but you must admit that you had me at a great disadvantage that evening.”
“What disadvantage, Mr. van Tuiver? The fact that I did not know who you were?”
She could feel him wince. She was prepared for a retort—but not so severe as the one which came. “The disadvantage,” he said, “that you _pretended_ not to know who I was.”
“Why,” she exclaimed, “what do you mean?”
He answered. “If we are going to fight, it ought to be upon a fair field. You pretended that evening that you had never heard my name. But I learned since that only a day or two before you had had a quite elaborate conversation about me.”
Sylvia’s first impulse was to inquire sarcastically what right he had to assume that his illustrious name would stay in her memory. But she realized that that was a poor retort; and then her sense of fair play came in. After all, he was right—the joke was on her, and she rather admired his nerve.
So she began to laugh. “Mr. van Tuiver,” she said, “you have annoyed me so that I won’t even take the trouble to think up new lies to tell you. Realize, if you can, the impression you managed to make upon a young girl—you and your reputation together—that she should be moved to use such weapons against you!”
He forgot his anger at this. “That’s just it, Miss Castleman! I don’t understand it at all! What have I done that you should take such an attitude towards me?”
Sylvia pondered. “I fear,” she said, “that you would not thank me for telling you.”
“You are mistaken!” he exclaimed. “I really would like to know.”
“But how can you say that—when I assure you I am in earnest? I have a very sincere admiration for you—truly. You are one of the most—one of the most amazing young women I ever met. I don’t say that in a bad sense, you understand——”