"Oh, well! speculations about life in general," he tried.
"Yes, I don't think any of us are much given to that sort of thing," she replied.
There had been some effect of a smile in her tone as she spoke, and he looked up and saw that she was indeed smiling, if a trifle ruefully.
"Not even you?" he asked.
She disregarded the implied flattery that distinguished her from all the other members of the family. "Have you done much speculating about life in general since you've been here?" she returned.
He had hardly begun his breakfast yet, but he laid his napkin on the table and pushed back his chair. "I wish you would let me come with you to-day," he said. "There are a heap of things I want to talk to you about. I know you don't like me, but it would be a real kindness if you would let me talk to you a little sometimes. There's simply no one here I can explain things to."
"Why me?" she replied.
"You're so different from all the others," he said.
"And are you?" she asked.
"Different from the others?" he repeated, staggered by the suggestion that he could be thought to resemble, in any particular, the other members of the Hartling circle.