Well--she wouldn't have me. She was most decided about it. I had no hope
and no defence and no appeal from her decision. Unless I was prepared to
be a bounder--and a fatuous bounder at that--I couldn't tell her that
she had given me encouragement that almost amounted to invitation. To do
her justice, until the dreadful moment in the taxi she hadn't known that
she had given me anything. She confessed that she had been trying to
convey to Reggie the impression that if her affections were engaged in
any quarter it was in mine. She had been so absorbed in calculating the
effect on Reggie that she had never considered the effect on me. She said
she thought I knew what she was up to and that I was simply seeing her
through. She spoke of Jevons as if he was a joke--a joke that might be
disastrous if her family took it seriously. It might end in her recall
from town. She intimated that there were limits even to Reggie's
enjoyment of the absurd; she owned quite frankly that she was afraid of
Reggie--afraid of what he might think of her and say to her; because, she
said, she was so awfully fond of him. As for me, and what _I_ might
think, it was open to me to regard her solitary stroll with Jevons as a
funny escapade.

I do not believe the poor child was trying to throw dust in my eyes. It
was her own eyes she was throwing dust in. She didn't want to think of
herself what she was afraid of Reggie thinking.

As to the grounds of my rejection (I was determined to know them), she
was clear enough in her own little mind. She liked me; she liked me
immensely; she liked me better than anybody in the world but Reggie. She
admired me; she admired everything I did; she thought me handsome; I was
the nicest-looking man she knew, next to Reggie. But she didn't love me.

"What's more, Furny," she said, "I can't think why I don't love you."