“Please let me pass!” she said. “I don’t want to—talk to you!”
He did not move. He stood squarely before her, with a queer, dogged, miserable look on his face.
“Not until you tell me why you—hate me,” he said.
She was silent for a moment, her heart filled with almost intolerable bitterness. Then suddenly she laughed.
“Oh, but you’d really better go!” she said. “You wouldn’t like it if some one should come and find you speaking to me!”
She regretted the words as soon as they were spoken. A singular change came over him.
“You mean—” he began, and paused. “You think I’m ashamed to be seen talking to you?”
“Let me go!” she said vehemently. “I won’t listen!”
But her defiance was little more than bravado. Her knees felt weak. She was frightened by the inexplicable thing she had done.
“That was a beastly, unjust thing to think,” he went on. “It was only on your account. I thought you wouldn’t want any one to know—”