But his story, inevitably, was one of ungallant efforts to evade impending pursuit. And when, to point up his lesson, he guardedly suggested a connection between the natural ambitions of Miss Angela, and the two complete transplantations of her family, Mary Wing seemed to gather more of his purely private thought than he had intended. One of her intent interrogative stares brought him to an unintended pause. And she commented quietly, but rebukingly, he considered:--
"You seem to have changed your opinion of Angela since last week."
There, of course, he hardly cared to justify himself. He could not well explain what Angela's resemblance to her mother had signified to him, and why he considered poor Dr. Flower the most magnificent romanticist in the world.
"I merely suggest," he said, with stiffening dignity, "that she does seem to be much interested in Donald--and he in her--now. I happen to know that he called on her twice the day he left for New York, and talked with her over the telephone this morning. But you mistake me, if you think I mean to criticize your cousin--personally. I hope I understand better than that how--all this--is as logical and mathematical as a natural law. How far in the other direction the education of women ought to take them ... that, of course, is not for me to guess.... My point is only that these--these perfectly logical ambitions--are strong enough to be taken seriously by those who mean to oppose them."
"Do you doubt that I take this seriously?"
"I have doubted it, I must admit.... Suppose this house-party comes to nothing, what do you mean to do?"
The former heroine of the write-ups did not answer him at once. She sat in a straight chair, half-sidewise, a considerable distance away; her arm was laid along the chair-back, her cheek sunk upon her hand. Something in the pose made the caller think of Donald's exaggerated statement, that he had never seen Mary so blue in his life.
When she spoke, it was not again to suggest, offhand, that he should save Donald by stepping in.
"You are right, of course," she said with a certain dignity herself. "I haven't been thinking of it as seriously as I should--evidently. Now--if this doesn't come to anything--I'll need some time to plan about it."