“Oh, nonsense! Couldn’t you see that I was joking? Why on earth should I care who you are? I’m old enough and sufficiently intelligent to find out very soon what you are. I’m not afraid of strange men. I can take care of myself.”
“It does no harm for a girl to be careful,” he answered, stubbornly.
And that was, apparently, his final word. They went on in silence. Frances counted fifteen blocks without a word. At the first crossing he had rather ceremoniously taken her arm, and he didn’t release it. He seemed quite contented to go on forever in this way. But it provoked Frances beyond measure. She longed to say to him:
“Why did you ask me to take a walk, if you didn’t want to speak to me?”
She made up her mind that she wouldn’t speak first, no matter how long it was. She had to, though. She looked at her watch.
“I’m afraid I’ll have to turn back now,” she said. “It’s time I was home.”
“I say!” he cried. “That’s too bad! I wanted to have a talk with you.”
“Why didn’t you talk then?” she asked, sharply, and he answered with equal irritability:
“My dear young lady, I can’t plunge into things the way you people do. I have to collect my thoughts a bit——”
“Strange as it may seem to you,” said Frances, “all the people in this country are not exactly alike.”