Miss Smith stole another glance at his face, and it seemed to her not only trustworthy but intelligent and friendly; so she told him. The sedate and sensible Miss Smith confessed to a strange man that she only had two quarters.
He was silent for a moment, staring before him.
“If I’m any good at all,” he thought, “I’ll handle this thing properly, so that she won’t be hurt or offended or troubled in any way.”
So he said aloud, in just the right tone, calm and good humored:
“I see! Of course you were worried; but it’s all right now. I’ll take you to my aunt, Mrs. Mount. She’ll understand.”
Fortunately Miss Smith was not a sufficiently good judge of character to read Mr. Powers’s mind just then; for he was thinking:
“You poor, sweet little thing! You poor little darling! I’d like to buy the whole island and give it to you! You ought to have everything. You deserve everything, you dear little thing!”
Miss Smith didn’t believe that people ever really thought things like that.
VI
Nor was Darcy Powers so good a judge of character as he fondly imagined; for his aunt did not accept the situation in the right spirit at all. She pretended to do so, and he thought she did, but in her heart she was bitterly angry and hurt. Her nephew was all she had in the world, and she loved him. She had been looking forward to this vacation of his for two years; and then he came driving up with this Miss Smith!