"You're very grumpy to-night," she remarked at length in her cheery young voice. "What's the matter?"
He started and looked intensely uncomfortable.
"Why of course? I wonder. With me it's the other way round. I am never cross without a reason."
Audrey smiled also. Fully exposed as was their position, there was no one near enough to overhear.
"Well, don't be cross any more, Phil," she said persuasively. "Cheer up, and come to tiffin with me to-morrow. Will you? I shall be quite alone."
Phil's smile departed instantly. He glanced at her for a second, and then fixed his eyes steadily upon the ground between his feet.
"You're awfully good!" he said at last. "But--thanks very much--I can't."
"Can't?" echoed Audrey, with genuine disappointment. "Oh, I'm sure that's nonsense! Why can't you? You're not on duty?"
"No," he said, speaking slowly, "I'm not on duty; but--fact is, I'm going up to the Hills shooting for a few days and--I shall be busy, packing guns and things. Besides--"
"Oh, do stop!" she broke in, with sudden impatience. "I know you are only making up as you go along. It's very horrid of you, besides being contemptible. Why can't you say at once that you are not coming because you don't want to come?"
Her quick pride had taken fire at sound of his deliberate excuse; and, as was its wont upon provocation, her anger flamed high at a moment's notice.
Phil did not look at her. His expression was decidedly uneasy, but there was a certain grimness about him that did not seem to indicate the probability of any excessive show of docility in face of a browbeating.
"I don't say it," he said doggedly at length, "because, besides being rude, it wouldn't be strictly true."
"I shouldn't have thought you would have had any scruples of that sort," rejoined Audrey, hitting her hardest because he had managed to hurt her. "They haven't been very apparent to-night."
Phil made no protest, but he was frowning heavily.
She leant slightly towards him, speaking behind her fan.
"Be honest just for a second," she said, "if you can, and tell me; are you tired of calling yourself a friend of mine? Are you trying to get out of it? Because, if you are, it's quite the easiest thing in the world to do so. But once done--"