"Good-bye," she said, extending her hand. It was gloved. It gave no clasp—it invited none. As I could not say the words which were on my tongue, I said nothing, and, raising my cap, I hurried away.
To make up for lost time, Percy drove very rapidly. "I came mighty near having a fight while you were in the house," said he. "It was that boy at the inn. He's a queer sort of a fellow, and awfully impertinent. He was talking about you, and he wanted to know if the bear had hurt you. He said he believed you were really afraid of the beast, and only wanted to show off before the women.
"I stood up for you, and I told him about Edith's runaway, and then he said, fair and square, that he didn't believe you stopped the horse. He said he guessed my sister pulled him up herself, and that then you came along and grabbed him and took all the credit. He said he thought you were that sort of a fellow.
"That's the time I was going to pitch into him, but then I thought it would be a pretty low-down thing for me to be fighting a country tavern-boy, so I simply gave him my opinion of him. I don't believe he'd have held the horse, only he thought it would make you get away quicker. He hates you. Did you ever kick him or anything?"
I laughed, and, telling Percy that I had never kicked the boy, I thanked him for his championship of me.