"Oh!"
She drew in her breath sharply. James could see that his last shaft had transfixed her. He was very clever, and he guessed exactly how she felt about gentlepeople, using the word in its widest sense. Quinney's money had made her a gentlewoman.
"My father was an officer in the Army." (It was true that James's father had once held a second lieutenant's commission in the Militia.) "My mother was the daughter of a West Country parson. They died when I was a boy. There was practically nothing for me. I was educated at a charitable institution. Charity apprenticed me to a cabinet-maker at Exeter. Charity nearly buried me—twice. I have known what it is, Miss Quinney, to be without food, and without money, and to wake morning after morning wishing that I had died in the night!"
III
This was the part of the tale which James told so fluently. Admittedly, that last long sentence smacked of rhetorical effect. It could hardly have been entirely impromptu. Nevertheless, it rolled Posy in the dust. She became horribly conscious of rushing in where angels might fear to tread. Indeed, that hackneyed quotation occurred to her. She ejaculated, "Oh!" for the second time, and blushed piteously. James rose to his feet. He spoke politely:
"I see that I have distressed you, and I am very sorry; but you asked me."
"I, too, am sorry," said Posy earnestly. "I am most awfully sorry. I wish I could say the right thing, but I feel rather a fool."
"The right thing for me to say, Miss Quinney, is good-bye. I shall go to Lulworth this afternoon."
"But why should you go? I don't understand. Are you going on our account?"
"On my own."