“Look here!” said Mr. Anderson crisply. “Don’t go in on my account. I’ll go, myself.”
Now, Miss Selby was not really haughty or disagreeable. Simply, she had been brought up on all sorts of Red Riding-hood tales, in which all the trouble was caused by giving encouragement to strangers.
She had been taught that it was a mad, reckless thing to acknowledge the existence of persons whose grandparents had not been known, and favorably known, to her grandparents. But certainly she had no desire to offend any one, and this stranger did seem to be offended. So she said:
“Oh, no! You mustn’t think of such a thing!”
She meant it kindly, but unfortunately she was utterly unable to speak in a natural way to a stranger. In reality she was a poor, homesick, affectionate, kind-hearted young girl of twenty, who, not fifteen minutes before, had been weeping from sheer loneliness.
But she spoke in what seemed to him an obnoxiously condescending and superior tone. He was a young man of many excellent qualities, but meekness was not one of them, and he resented this tone.
So he spoke with an air of amused indulgence, as if he thought her such a funny little thing:
“I don’t want to drive you away, you know.”
She raised her eyebrows.
“Why, of course not!” she said, just as much amused as he was, and sat down in one of the chairs against the wall.