You don't care a
straw."

She said nothing for a moment, then, suddenly, she stopped again,
dropping her eyes.

"I beg your pardon," she said, very gently; "I care a great deal. It 's
as well that you should know that."

Bernard stood looking at her; her eyes were still lowered.

"Do you know what I shall tell him? I shall tell him that about eleven
o'clock at night you become peculiarly attractive."

She went on again a few steps; Miss Evers and Captain Lovelock had
turned round and were coming toward her.

"It is very true that I am outrageous," she said; "it was extremely
silly and in very bad taste to come out at this hour. Mamma was not at
all pleased, and I was very unkind to her. I only wanted to take a turn,
and now we will go back." On the others coming up she announced this
resolution, and though Captain Lovelock and his companion made a
great outcry, she carried her point. Bernard offered no opposition. He
contented himself with walking back to her mother's lodging with her
almost in silence. The little winding streets were still and empty;
there was no sound but the chatter and laughter of Blanche and her
attendant swain. Angela said nothing.

This incident presented itself at first to Bernard's mind as a sort
of declaration of war. The girl had guessed that she was to be made
a subject of speculative scrutiny. The idea was not agreeable to her
independent spirit, and she placed herself boldly on the defensive. She
took her stand upon her right to defeat his purpose by every possible
means--to perplex, elude, deceive him--in plain English, to make a fool
of him. This was the construction which for several days Bernard put
upon her deportment, at the same time that he thought it immensely
clever of her to have guessed what had been going on in his mind. She
made him feel very much ashamed of his critical attitude, and he did
everything he could think of to put her off her guard and persuade her
that for the moment he had ceased to be an observer. His position at
moments seemed to him an odious one, for he was firmly resolved that
between him and the woman to whom his friend had proposed there should
be nothing in the way of a vulgar flirtation. Under the circumstances,
it savoured both of flirtation and of vulgarity that they should even
fall out with each other--a consummation which appeared to be more or
less definitely impending. Bernard remarked to himself that his own only
reasonable line of con