"He won't speak to me if he can help it," replied Alice, fairly crying by this time, "and when he is obliged to say anything he does so in such a queer, hard voice that everybody round can see how he detests me. I often dare not speak to him when other people are there, for fear he should snub me before them and make me die of shame."
"Why don't you ask him if he is offended with you?"
"I did; and he said: 'Why should you suppose I am offended with you, Miss Martin? If my conduct has given rise to this suspicion, I must have been sadly wanting in courtesy, and I humbly apologize.' Then I felt ready to sink into the earth."
"How horrid of him!"
"He and I used to be so fond of each other when we were children. But lately he has put up palings all round himself, as if he were a tree in a park, and won't let me come near him."
"It really is queer!" agreed Joanna.
"I begin to think the real reason is that he considers us common," sobbed Alice. "Of course I know we don't belong to a good old family, like the Fords; but we are just the same as we always were; and it is unkind and snobbish of Edgar to throw over his old friends because he is ashamed of them!"
And all that time Edgar Ford was congratulating himself on behaving as a man of honour towards Paul and Alice; and he was positively wearing himself out with his superhuman efforts to hide from the latter the fact that he cared for her.
Truly the ways of a conscientious man are sometimes difficult to fathom!