"You beast! You beast! To do a thing like that!" Then, as she became on better terms with the nature of the vulgar insult to which she had been subjected, her anger blazed out.
"How dare you insult a defenceless girl?"
"But—" the man stammered.
"What have I ever done but try and work to keep away from such things, and now you come and—Oh, you beast—you cruel beast! You'll never know what you have done."
A sense of shame possessed her. She turned away to drop scalding tears. Anger quickly succeeded this brief fit of dejection. It caused her inexpressible pain to think that she, a daughter of a proud family, the girl with the aloof soul, should have been treated in the same way as any fast London shop-girl. She was consumed with passion; she feared what form her rage might take. At least she was determined to have the man turned out of the house. She moved towards the bell.
"If I've made a mistake," began the man, who all this time had been fearfully watching her.
"If you've made a mistake!" she echoed scornfully.
"The best of us do sometimes, you know," he continued.
"Why to me—to me? What have I said or done to encourage you? Why to me?" she cried.
"If I've made a mistake, I'm more sorry than I can say, more sorry than you can guess."