Then he laughed again with fresh amusement.
“Comme madame se fâche!” he cried, “it is most droll! All that I may say you will believe.”
“I find you very exasperating,” Rosina exclaimed, her cheeks becoming hotly pink; “you amuse yourself in a way that transcends politeness. I honestly think that you are very rude indeed, and I am in earnest now.”
He made a careless movement with his head.
“Would you have preferred that I should believe you really expect of me an automobile?” he asked.
“You could not possibly have thought that anyhow, and so why should you have spoken as if you were afraid lest I might have meant it?”
He rapped on a tree with his cane as he passed it.
“‘Might,’ and ‘would,’ and ‘should,’” he said placidly, “those are the hardest words for a stranger to learn correctly.”
She felt her temper slipping its anchor.
“Probably when your tutor endeavored to teach you their difference you feared that yielding to his way might be sacrificing your independence, and so you refused to consider his instruction.”