Their conversation started stiffly. He had come, he explained, to say
good-by. He was leaving the State to go to Washington prior to the opening
of the session.
This gave her a chance to congratulate him upon his election. "I haven't
had an opportunity before. You've been so busy, of course, preparing to
save the country, that your time must have been very fully occupied."
He did not show his surprise at this interpretation of the fact that he had
quietly desisted from his attentions to her, but accepted it as the correct
explanation, since she had chosen to offer it.
Miss Balfour expressed regret that he was going, though she did not suppose
she would see any less of him than she had during the past two months. He
did not take advantage of her little flings to make the talk less formal,
and Virginia, provoked at his aloofness, offered no more chances. Things
went very badly, indeed, for ten minutes, at the end of which time Hobart
rose to go. Virginia was miserably aware of being
wretched despite the cool hauteur of her seeming indifference. But he was
too good a sportsman to go without letting her know he held no grudge.
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