“Your ladyship will excuse me!” he answered.
She gave a condescending motion to her pretty neck, and said,
“I need hardly explain, Mr. Colman, why I have sought this interview. You must by this time be aware how peculiar, how unreasonable indeed, your behavior was!”
“Pardon me! I do not see the necessity for a word on the matter. I leave by the first train in the morning!”
“I will not dwell on the rudeness of listening—”
“—To a review of my own book read by a friend!” interrupted Walter, with indignation; “in a drawing-room where I sat right in front of you, and knew no reason why you should not see me! I did make a great mistake, but it was in trusting a lady who, an hour or two before, had offered to be my sister! How could I suspect she might speak of me in a way she would not like to hear!”
Lady Lufa was not quite prepared for the tone he took. She had expected to find him easy to cow. Her object was to bring him into humble acceptance of the treatment against which he had rebelled, lest he should afterward avenge himself! She sat a moment in silence.
“Such ignorance of the ways of the world,” she said, “is excusable in a poet—especially—”
“Such a poet!” supplemented Walter, who found it difficult to keep his temper in face of her arrogance.
“But the world is made up of those that laugh and those that are laughed at.”