Mr. Whiston stopped in the act of finger-combing his beard.
'What doubt can there be of it?'
'They seem to me,' proceeded Rose nervously, 'to be very respectful and very honest.'
'My dear, you astound me! Is it respectful to force one's acquaintance upon an unwilling stranger? I really don't understand you. Where is your sense of propriety, Rose? A vulgar, noisy fellow, who talks of beer and tobacco—a petty clerk! And he has the audacity to write to me that he wants to—to make friends with my daughter! Respectful? Honest? Really!'
When Mr. Whiston became sufficiently agitated to lose his decorous gravity, he began to splutter, and at such moments he was not impressive. Rose kept her eyes cast down. She felt her strength once more, the strength of a wholly reasonable and half-passionate revolt against that tyrannous propriety which Mr. Whiston worshipped.
'Father—'
'Well, my dear?'
'There is only one thing I dislike in these letters—and that is a falsehood.'
'I don't understand.'
Rose was flushing. Her nerves grew tense; she had wrought herself to a simple audacity which overcame small embarrassments.