He was staring sombrely into the fire, almost as if he had forgotten his companion.
There fell a pause; then, "You poor dear!" said the Dragon-Fly, sympathetically.

"But I expect you are like that, you know.

I expect it's a bit your own fault." He looked at her in surprise.
"No, I'm not meaning anything nasty," she assured him, with that quick smile of hers whose sweetness he was just beginning to realize.

"But after a bad knockout like yours a man naturally looks for trouble.

He gets suspicious, and a snub or two does the rest.