“Yes. After your treatment of me last night, I felt nervous.”
“My treatment of you! What treatment?”
“Why were you so unkind? Or mustn’t I ask why?”
“You may ask, of course. But I can’t give you any answer, because I didn’t know that I was unkind.”
“I wish I could believe that.”
“Well, if you won’t believe it, I have nothing to say.”
Rudolph was silent a few minutes. Then with a burst of explosive energy, he made up his mind.
“No!” he cried so loudly that Mabin started, and threw himself down on the sand beside her, “I will not be daunted. I will encase myself in double snub-proof armor plates, and I will try to teach her that to be dignified it is not necessary to be unkind—and—yes, I will say it—absolutely rude.”
Mabin became crimson, and the tears started to her eyes. She had not meant to be rude, but undoubtedly her behavior had laid her open to this accusation.
“I am stupid, clumsy; I am rude without meaning it,” she said in a tone of such excessive humility and penitence that it was impossible to doubt her sincerity. “I am very sorry. But you shouldn’t take any notice of what I do or say. Nobody does at home. When I am more awkward and tiresome than usual, they always say: ‘Oh, it’s only Mabin!’ And then nobody minds.”