“That’s a pity; for I cannot think it is your wish to live in such isolation.”
“Quite my wish!” she interposed, with a certain haughtiness. “I have had sufficient experience of mankind to make me care little for their society.”
“So young, and already such a misanthrope—afraid of the world!” I observed.
“I am not so very young—I am turned twenty-six; and the campaign years, as grandfather calls them, count double. You may speak to me as though I were a woman of forty. I have quite as much experience of life.”
“Ladies talk like that when they wish to be contradicted.”
“Ladies!” she cried, with ineffable contempt. “I very earnestly request you not to include me in the category of beings commonly denominated ladies.”
“In which category must I put you? For, to tell the truth, at first sight I did not know what to call you.”
“I believe you,” she said, with a little laugh; “for to any one who does not know me I must appear very odd. But, tell me, what did you take me for at first sight—for an apparition of the wild huntsman?”
“An apparition! Certainly not; that’s too ethereal. I took you for a sad reality—a gamekeeper suffering from toothache.”
She seemed piqued for a moment, her cheeks coloured, and she bit her lips.