"I meant nothing offensive."
"I do not know what you meant, and I do not care: go!"
He rose and stood before her, and with a flash of sincere anger he spoke his honest mind: "It was you who put the notion in my head. You encouraged me, encouraged me systematically; and now you are pretending. You are a bad woman."
"I think I am a bad woman after what has happened to me this morning," said Miss Anna, dazed and ready to break down.
He hesitated when he reached the door, smarting with his honest hurt; and he paused there and made a request.
"At least I hope that you will never mention this; it might injure me." He did not explain how, but he seemed to know.
"Do you suppose I'd tell my Maker if He did not already know it?"
She swept past him into the kitchen.
"As soon as you have done your work, go clean the parlor," she said to the cook. "Give it a good airing. And throw that cream away, throw the bottle away."
A few moments later she hurried with her bowl into the pantry; there she left it unfinished and crept noiselessly up the backstairs to her room.
That evening as Professor Hardage sat opposite to her, reading, while she was doing some needlework, he laid his book down with the idea of asking her some question. But he caught sight of her expression and studied it a few moments. It was so ludicrous a commingling of mortification and rage that he laughed outright.