"I--I'd rather talk of something else," he stammered. "I've stopped boxing."
"Why?" wide-eyed. "The newspapers were wild about you. It _was_ a fluke, wasn't it--Clancy 'getting' you in the ninth?"
"No," he muttered sullenly, "he whipped me fairly."
"Really. I'm awfully sorry. When one sets one's heart upon a thing--"
"Will you be quiet, Una?" he cried impetuously. "I won't have you talking this way, of these things. I--I was jollied into the thing. I mean," with a glance at me, "I never thought of the consequences. It--it was only a lark. I'm out of it, for good."
"Oh!" she said in a subdued tone, her gaze upon a distant tree-trunk. "It's too bad."
Whatever she meant by that cryptic remark, Jerry looked most uncomfortable. Her irony had cut him to the quick, and her humor had flayed his quivering sensibilities. That he took it without anger argued much for the quality of the esteem in which he held her. Another person, even I, in similar circumstances, would have courted demolition. Secretly, I was delighted. She had struck just the right note. He still writhed inwardly, but he made no effort at unconcern. I think he was perfectly willing that she should be a witness of his self-abasement.
"I was an idiot, Una, a conceited, silly fool. I deserve everything you say. I think it makes me a little happier to hear you say it, because if you weren't my friend you'd have kept quiet."
"I haven't said anything," she remarked urbanely. "And of course it's none of my affair."
I had risen, for along the path some people were coming. Jerry and Una, their backs being turned, were so absorbed in their conversation that they did not hear the rustle of footsteps, but when I rose they glanced at me and saw my face. I would have liked to have spirited them away, but it was too late. I made out the visitors now, Marcia, Phil Laidlaw, Sarah Carew and Channing Lloyd. I saw a change come in Jerry's face, as though a gray cloud had passed over it. Una started up, butterfly-net in hand, and glanced from one to the other of us, a question in her eyes, her face a trifle set.
"Oh, here you are," Marcia's soft voice was saying. "It seemed ages getting here."
Jerry took charge of the situation with a discretion that did the situation credit.