I won't let it spoil my life," she resolved while she bit back a sob.

"Whatever happens, I am not going to let my life be ruined." She had repeated this so often that it had begun to drone in her mind like a line out of a hymn-book; and she was still repeating it when she swept by Stephen without so much as a word or a look.

A dangerous mood was upon her.

Nothing mattered, she felt, if she could only prove to him that she also had been trifling; that his kiss had meant as little to her as to him; that from the beginning to the end she had been as indifferent as he was.
Her step quickened into a run; and Gershom, striding, in order to keep up with her, looked at her with the jovial laugh that she hated.

"You're in a powerful hurry to-day, ain't you ?" he remarked.
"I'm always in a hurry.