It was safer and far more dignified, but at the
same time she yearned for an opportunity of teaching this presumptuous
young man a lesson. So far he had had it all his own way. A way strewn
with ambiguities which a modest maiden had to ignore despite herself.
"Of course, Wilks may have had a disappointment," said Hardy, with the
air of one willing to make allowances.
"I believe he had about fifty," said the girl, carelessly.
Hardy shook his head in strong disapproval. "No man should have more
than one," he said, firmly; "a man of any strength of will wouldn't have
that."
"Strength of will?" repeated the astonished Miss Nugent.
Their eyes met; hers sparkling with indignation; his full of cold
calculation. If he had had any doubts before, he was quite sure now that
he had gone the right way to work to attract her attention; she was
almost quivering with excitement.
"Your ideas will probably change with age--and disappointment," she said,
sweetly.
"I shall not be disappointed," said Hardy, coolly. "I'll take care of
that."
Miss Nugent eyed him wistfully and racked her brains for an appropriate
and crushing rejoinder. In all her experience--and it was considerable
considering her years--she had never met with such carefully constructed
audacity, and she longed, with a great longing, to lure him into the open
and destroy him.
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