She only wanted to show that she knew some French." But Hilliard wondered whether Patty could be right.

Was it not possible that Eve had gratified her vanity by representing her friend as a servant--a lady's-maid?
Yet why should he attribute such a fault to her?
It was an odd thing that he constantly regarded Eve in the least favourable light, giving weight to all the ill he conjectured in her, and minimising those features of her character which, at the beginning, he had been prepared to observe with sympathy and admiration.

For a man in love his reflections followed a very unwonted course.

And, indeed, he had never regarded his love as of very high or pure quality; it was something that possessed him and constrained him--by no means a source of elevating emotion.
"Do you like Eve ?" he asked abruptly, disregarding some trivial question Patty had put to him.
"Like her?
Of course I do." "And _why_ do you like her ?" "Why ?--ah--I don't know.

Because I do." And she laughed foolishly.
"Does Eve like _you_ ?" Hilliard continued.
"I think she does.