"Oh, yes!" I said, in a voice as ordinary as possible. I didn't want her to think I was going to "rag," or make any sort of fuss about this. Why shouldn't Elizabeth go out for an evening stroll with a young man if she wanted to—just like any other girl on the land or anywhere else?
"He knows some of my people," Elizabeth flung back in that defensive mutter, "and he wanted to talk to me about another tenant for the flat in London, and, as well as that, he's got a mother who's got a friend who's got a daughter who's thinking of joining up for the Land Army. So, you see, he wanted to—talk to me."
"Yes, I quite see," said I.
Three excuses for talking, from a young man whom she only called "He"!
"So he wrote to me. I promised I'd see him for a minute after tea tonight."
"Oh, yes. When did you promise that?" slipped from me before I knew.
Elizabeth gave her mattress a little kick as she lugged it out.
"I met him on the road the other day," she said in the tone of one who shakes a fist at the world—what it is to have to live up to the name of Man-hater!—and added: "You needn't think there's any nonsense of that sort about it!"
"I never said there was," mildly from me.
"You're always ready to think it!" tigerishly from her. "So I thought I'd just tell you, to stop your getting any wrong impression!"