2

And this gave an additional whet to my intentions. So
I called upon the girl, and she, to my chagrin, received
me with an air of having danced with me some five or six
times the night before; our conversation was at first
trivial and, on her part, dishearteningly cordial; and, in
fine, she completely baffled me by not appearing to expect
any least explanation of my discourteous neglect. This^

185



i86 THE CORDS OF VANITY

look you, when I had been at pains to prepare a perfectly
convincing one.
It must be conceded I completely lost my temper ;
shortly afterward neither of us was speaking with ex-
cessive forethought; and each of us languidly advanced
a variety of observations which were more dexterous
than truthful. But I followed the intractable heiress to
the Moncrieffs that spring, in spite of this rebuff, being
msufferably provoked by her unshakable assumptions of
my friendship and of nothing more.
3

It was perhaps a week later she told me: "This, be-
yond any reasonable doubt, is the Forest of Arden."

"But where Rosalindas is always Arden," I said, po-
litely. Yet I made a mental reservation as to a glimpse
of the golf-links, which this particular nook of the forest
afforded, and of a red-headed caddy in search of a lost
ball.
But beyond these things the sun was dying out in a
riot of colour, and its level rays fell kindlily upon the
gaunt pines that were thick about us two, converting
them into endless aisles of dusty, palpitating gold.
