The girl laughed.
"The women here to-night are a great deal less dowdy than one would
imagine, don't you think?"
"I wonder if you realize your responsibility?" said Dan.
Virginia did not reply for a moment. She had not considered this
outgrowing phase of her unreserved interest in the young Captain. So
long as he had remained a sort of quiescent _protege_, there could be
no possible harm in her attitude toward him. Evidently he did not
intend so to remain. There was of course, therefore, nothing to do but
reestablish their relations.
"I am afraid my responsibilities are too varied and serious for
discussion with--with any one," she said at length.
"But where they concern me?"
The girl stepped back slightly, drawing her skirts about her as though
recoiling, or, rather, withdrawing from the question. Yet despite her
desire to end the conversation, she really was curious as to his drift;
and, besides, he made the most romantic sort of picture as he stood at
her side, clean cut, bareheaded, and as self-assured evidently as any
man she had ever talked with. Her wish was to dismiss him with
admonition, gently, if plainly to be understood. But this she could
not do just then, and the realization of the fact irritated her.
"I suppose," she said slowly, "at least I have read that our
responsibilities do not cease with one's friends, but extend,
sometimes, even to--to acquaintances, or to persons, perhaps, whom one
does not know.
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