An extraordinary and rather alarming change came over Miss Bypass's hard face. Sabre thought she was going to cry. She said in a thick voice, "Oh, I don't really read anything particularly good. It's only—Mr. Sabre, thank you." She turned abruptly away.
When they were outside, Mabel said, "How extraordinary you are!"
"Eh? What about?"
"Making up to that girl like that! I never heard such rudeness as the way she spoke to you." Sabre said, "Oh, I don't know."
"Don't know! When you spoke to her so politely and the way she answered you! And then you reply quite pleasantly—"
He laughed. "You didn't expect me to give her a hard punch in the eye, did you?"
"No, of course I didn't expect you to give her a hard punch in the eye. But I should have thought you'd have had more sense of your own dignity than to take no notice and invite her to have a talk one day."
He thought, "Here we are again!" He said, "Well, but look, Mabel. I don't think she means it for rudeness. She is rude of course, beastly rude; but, you know, that manner of hers always makes me feel frightfully sorry for her."
"Sorry!"
"Yes, haven't you noticed many people like her with that defiant sort of way of speaking—people not very well educated, or very badly off, or in rather a dependent position, and most frightfully conscious of it. They think every one is looking down on them, or patronising them, and the result is they're on the defensive all the time. Well, that's awfully pathetic, you know, all your life being on the defensive; back against the wall; can't get away; always making feeble little rushes at the mob. By Jove, that's pathetic, Mabel."