"Hatred is one extreme. Did you mean that, Japonette?"
"The opposite extreme to hate.... Is that conceivable, too?"
"Well, for example, ask yourself how likely I am to entertain that sentimental extreme in your regard."
"Oh," he said; "then all you threaten me with is hatred!"
"Hobson's choice for mine. No matter how agreeable I may be, placid friendship is my only reward; and if I'm not agreeable, hatred. Is that it?"
"Are you not satisfied?" she asked, lifting her prettily shaped eyes.
Yet, he had been satisfied, except at intervals during the first flush of their unconventional friendship, when she was still a fascinating novelty to him, when the charming memory of the surprise was still vivid.
But since then, recently in fact, other matters, somehow, had intervened--the dawning distaste for his own position, the apparent absence of any future prospect, the gradual conviction that he had no real capacity for decently earning a living, no ability--perhaps no character.
His silence seemed to be her answer now; she spurred forward, accepting it. He put his horse to a canter, to a gallop, and they raced away through the woods until they came in sight of the others. Colonel Curmew joined her; Edgerton rode forward with Christine Rivett.
That afternoon there was some tennis played; a number of commonplace and very rich people departed, leaving as residue the original house party which Edgerton and his cousins had found there on their arrival, and who now knew one another well enough to separate into sympathetic groups.
Thus, Judge Wicklow, Mrs. Rivett, and Mrs. Lorrimore played Chinese Kahn under the terrace awning; Colonel Follis Curmew, who had been rash enough to discard his coat and reveal an unlooked-for excess of abdomen, played tennis with Silvette against Jack Rivett and Mrs. Wemyss; Mr. Rivett and Mr. Snaith indulged in laborious clock golf and talked of oil; and Christine and Edgerton, down by the river's edge, continued a conversation begun the evening previous, and which was near enough to meaning something to stimulate their attention.
From his clock golf on the lawn above, Mr. Rivett turned his convex glasses on them occasionally; from one card table on the terrace, her mother, drawing the white wool shawl closer around her slight shoulders, watched her daughter from moment to moment.