“Let us have the moral, by all means, if you can find one in all that tissue of nonsense.”
“I pass over your impertinent comments in silence. The moral is——What have I done to make you dislike me so much, Miss Langton?”
“I don’t understand you, Mr. Cooke. If I disliked you, should I have devoted all my energies, as I have done this afternoon, to preparing your dinner and being to you all that Mrs. Briggs ever was and more—for she never gives you coffee after dinner?”
“Your civility to me to-day has been dictated by the purest selfishness. If it had not been for me you would have had to go out and buy your own dinner, and you would not have known which side of the gridiron to hold. I repeat, without me you would have been a forlorn, dinner-less woman. Look here—there is no making a bargain with a lady, because she can always cry off when she likes. But if you would only believe that nothing would give me so much pleasure as to be able to render you any service at any time, and that your reserve really does hurt sometimes, I should be so glad of having had this chance of telling you so.”
He got shy against the end of this speech; and Annie turned toward him a face which looked very sweet as well as pretty in the fire light.
“I do believe it,” she said, simply. “And I promise you that for the future you shall not only not have to complain of my reserve, but you may think yourself lucky if you do not have to check my forwardness.”
“Madam, my innate dignity will awe you sufficiently,” said Aubrey haughtily.
But he looked as much pleased as his inexpressive face ever allowed him to look. And when Mrs. Briggs came in just in time to get tea ready, affecting great surprise at their being home before her, and protesting that she had understood both of them to say they would dine out, they were both still chatting amicably by the kitchen fire. Aubrey was in such high spirits that he seized the occasion to thunder forth a long harangue at the frightened and apologetic old woman.
“Is this the way to treat two members of a profession which numbers in its ranks the fairest of England’s women and the noblest of her men? Woman, do you take us for amateurs? Your four hours of trifling and foolish chattering in the market-place—a thing which Bunyan condemns as most reprehensible—have been gained at the expense of an afternoon of unspeakable suffering and wretchedness to two of the most pecuniarily desirable inmates who have ever condescended to take up a temporary residence under your inhospitable roof!”
Mrs. Briggs was overwhelmed.