Yet in her shame for him she could lift her eyes; and he still kept his lowered upon the floor.
"To whom do you want me to write?" she asked.
"It's to a girl," he answered doggedly; and the words seemed to call up a dark flush in his face, which a moment before had been unwontedly pale— though this she did not perceive.
"A girl?"
"That's so; a girl, miss, if you don't mind—a girl as it happens I'm fond of."
"A love-letter? Is that what you mean?"
"If you don't mind, Miss Marvin?"
"Why on earth should I mind?" she asked, with a heat unintelligible to herself as to him.
A suspicion crossed her mind that the young woman might not be over-respectable; but she dismissed it. If the message were such as she could indite, she had no warrant to inquire further; and yet, "Is it quite fair to her?" she added.
The question plainly confused him. "Fair, miss?"