He wondered if he were expected to laugh.
He stammered, after a bewildered pause: "How is all this going to effect you?—Will you leave Millstead?"
She replied, with a touch in her voice of what he thought might have been mockery: "My father foresaw the plight I might be in some day and thoughtfully left me his counsel on the subject. Perhaps you'd like me to read it?"
She went over to the bookcase and took down an edition-de-luxe copy of one of the Helping-Hand-Books.
"Here it is—'How to Meet Difficulties'—Page 38—I'll read the passage—it's only a short one. 'How is it that the greatest and noblest of men and women are those against whom Fate has set her most tremendous obstacles?—Simply that it is good for a man or a woman to fight, good to find paths fraught with dire perils and difficulties galore, good to accept the ringing challenge of the gods! Nay, I would almost go so far as to say: lucky is that boy or girl who is cast, forlorn and parentless upon the world at a tender age, for if there be greatness in him or her at all, it will be forced to show itself as surely as the warm suns of May compel each flower to put forth her bravest splendour!' ... So now you know, Mr. Speed!"
She had read the passage as if declaiming to an audience. It was quite a typical extract from the works of the late Mr. Harrington: such phrases as 'dire perils,' 'difficulties galore,' and 'ringing challenge of the gods' contained all that was most truly characteristic of the prose style of the Helping-Hand-Books.
Speed said, rather coldly: "Do you know what one would wonder, hearing you talk like this?"
"What?"
"One would wonder if you had any heart at all."
Again the curious look came into her eyes and the note of asperity into her voice. "If I had, do you think I would let you see it, Mr. Speed?" she said.