"I was saying that I had interested myself in her case and—"
He snapped in: "One moment. Let's get this all straightened out before we start. May I inquire if you are closely related to the young person in question?"
"I am not. I never saw her but once."
"Are you by any chance a close friend of the young woman?"
He towered over her, for she was seated and he had not offered to sit down. Indeed throughout the interview he remained standing.
Looking up at him, where he glowered above her, she answered back promptly:
"As I was saying, I never saw her but once—that was on the day she was carried away to be placed in confinement. So I cannot call myself her friend exactly, though I would like to be her friend. It was because of the sympathy which her position—and I might add, her personality—roused in me that I have taken the liberty of coming here to see you about her."
Under his breath he growled and grunted and puffed certain sounds. She caught the purport of at least two of the words.
"Pardon me, doctor," she said briskly, "but I am not an amateur philanthropist. I trust I'm not an amateur anything. I am a business woman earning my own living by my own labors and I pay taxes and for the past year or so I have been a citizen and a voter. Please do not regard me merely as an officious meddler—a busybody with nothing to do except to mind other people's affairs. It was quite by chance that I came upon this poor child and learned something of her unhappy state."