The man's pointing hand, which was large and strong-looking, fell at his side, and he gazed at her with a sarcasm which he no longer troubled to conceal.
"May I ask what under the sun you can do?"
"What I can do?..."
Under his hard and frankly belittling stare, Carlisle began to feel rather small, despite her firm resolves to feel nothing of the sort. She had heard something of this Mr. Pond in the past week: a person of some consequence in the world, it was said, several kinds of Doctor, and the author of a work on The Settlement which was considered "standard" and which Cally had meant (since last night) to purchase at Saltman's bookstore. Report made him also a man of some independent means and position, and certainly he had come with excellent letters and credentials. But Cally did not consider that these things justified anybody in being so thoroughly hateful, particularly when you could see that it was only an eccentric pose....
"That," said she, with dignity, "is what I am now considering--"
"But you've already offered to help! I merely request you, in a polite manner, to state how you can help me, in my big, serious and important work.... Doesn't it occur to you, in fact, that you are somewhat helpless?"
"Does it occur to you that you are being somewhat rude?"
"Does it occur to you that what you call rudeness may be exactly the sort of wholesome irritant needed by people of your class?"
"What do you mean by people of my class?"
Cally raised a white-gloved hand and put back a tendril of her gay hair. She looked at him level-eyed. The man's constant and cocksure "I," "me," "mine," rubbed her strongly the wrong way. This was Dr. Vivian's Settlement, and nobody else's. She was convinced that Vivian would have made a far better Director anyway....