He was a little disconcerted, because he knew that Mrs. Jones was not fond of him, and he was extremely suspicious of her. But she looked so sedate, almost venerable, standing there in the lighted doorway, in her best black dress, with her gray hair, her spectacles. He took off his hat, and spoke to her civilly.
“I came to ask for a glass of milk,” he said.
Then she repeated what she had said before, and it was not “It’s I,” but the word “Spy!” uttered with a suppressed scorn that startled him.
“Spy!” she said. “I know you!”
He looked at her in stern amazement.
“Leave this house!” she said. “You can deceive a poor innocent young girl, but you can’t deceive me. You and your glass of milk! I know you! And I tell you straight to your face that you’re not coming one step farther. I’m going to stay here all night, and I’m going to see to it that neither you nor anybody else comes to worry and torment that poor girl. Go!”
“All right!” said Ross, briefly, and, turning on his heel, went out of the house.
“If she’s going to take over the job of watchdog, she’s welcome to it,” he thought. “I guess she’d be pretty good at that sort of thing. But—spy!”
His face grew hot.
“I don’t feel inclined to swallow that,” he said to himself, deliberately. “Some day we’ll have a reckoning, Mrs. Jones!”