“Have I been nasty to her?” he asked, with an innocence that was palpably counterfeit.
“Don’t you think you have?” She still looked gravely, smilingly, into his eyes.
“I don’t see how.” He maintained his feint of innocence.
“Don’t you think you’ve responded somewhat ungraciously to her overtures of friendship?” she suggested. “Do you think it was nice to answer her letters with those curt little formal notes of yours? Look. Johannah sat down to write to you. And she began her letter Dear Mr. Stretton. And then she simply couldn’t. So she tore up the sheet, and began another My Dear Cousin Will. And what did she receive in reply? A note beginning Dear Miss Silver. Do you think that was kind? Don’t you think it was the least bit mortifying? And why have you refused in such a stiff-necked way to go down to see her at Silver Towers?”
“Oh,” he protested, “in all fairness, in all logic, your questions ought to be put the other way round.”
“Bother logic! But put them any way you like,” said she.
“What right had Miss Silver to expect me to multiply the complications of my life by rushing into an ecstatic friendship with her? And why, being very well as I am in town just now, why should I disarrange myself by a journey into the country?”
“Why indeed?” she echoed. “I’m sure I can give no reason. Why should one ever do any one else a kindness? Your cousin has conceived a great desire to meet you.”
“Oh, a great desire!” He tossed his head. “One knows these great desires. She’ll live it down. A man named Burrell has been stuffing her up.”
“Stuffing her up?” She smiled enquiringly. “The expression is new to me.”