'What's the matter?' asked Peggy, noting these signs of disturbance.
'Nothing,' said Airey, fretfully. 'You needn't talk as if I was a pauper,' he broke out the next moment.
Here was something strange indeed. Never before had he resented any implied reference to his poverty; nay, he had rather seemed to welcome it; and in their little circle everybody took the thing as a matter of course. But Airey stood there looking resentful or at least ashamed, and greatly hurt anyhow. Peggy was terribly upset. She jumped up and ran to him, holding out her hands.
'How could I?' she cried. 'I had no idea—— Dear Airey, do forgive me! I never thought of hurting your feelings! How can you think that I or any of us mind a scrap whether you're rich or poor?' There were tears in her eyes, and she would not be refused a grasp of his hands. 'You thought I took it all—all you give me—and then sneered at you!' gasped Peggy.
'I'm comfortably off,' said Airey stiffly and obstinately.
'Yes, yes; of course you are. I'll never say anything of the sort again, Airey.' She let go his hands with a reluctant slowness; she missed the hearty forgiveness for which she had begged. He puzzled her now.
'I have money for everything I need. I don't pose as being poor.'
'Oh, you mustn't take it like that,' she groaned, feeling fit to cry in real earnest, conceiving him to be terribly wounded, sure now that he had squandered his resources on the dinner because among them they had made him ashamed of being poor. She could not herself understand being ashamed of poverty, but she had an idea that many people were—especially men perhaps, to whom it properly belonged to labour, and to labour successfully.
'I sha'n't go until you forgive me,' she insisted. 'It'll spoil everything for me if you don't, Airey.'
'There's nothing to forgive,' he rejoined gloomily, as he dropped into a chair by the little table and rested his elbow on the red-leather book. 'I don't want to sail under false pretences, that's all.' His tones were measured and still hard. Peggy felt herself in disgrace; she drifted back to the window and forlornly poured out another cup of tea.