"Yes, I'm Suzanna Procter. The other little girls have gone out into the garden."
He grunted and continued to glare fiercely at her. But Suzanna knew no fear. She felt strangely a sudden high sense of exhilaration, just as once when she had been caught in a brilliant electric storm. Some element in her rose and responded to the big flashes; just as she had responded to Drusilla's play of imagination. Now a force was roused in her that claimed kinship with the big, thunderous man opposite. She sat up very straight, and stared right back at him. Then she said very calmly:
"You look like an eagle!"
"Then you're afraid of me!" He flung the words at her with a certain triumph.
"I'm not! I don't like the way you shout, but I'm not afraid of you."
He sank back among his pillows, but did not take his eyes from her face. At last he asked: "What are you sitting bent up that way for? Are you hiding anything?"
Suzanna flushed. "You're not supposed to ask a visitor if she's hiding anything; especially when her leg's asleep and she's suffering."
A spasm crossed his face. Perhaps he was trying to smile. He said only: "Well, put your leg down, then. Seems to me you're old enough and ought to have sense enough not to sit on it when it's asleep. Put it down, I say!"
She did not move. "Will you please turn your head away a whole minute?" she finally asked.
He did so, somewhat to his own surprise. He was unaccustomed to obeying others. When he turned again, she uttered a cry: "Why didn't you keep your head turned the other way till I told you to look," she exclaimed, indignantly. "You don't play fair."