However, the dear old lady did not leave me long in doubt.
She was never in the habit of “beating about the bush;” but always spoke out straight, plump and plain, to the point.
“Really, my boy,” she continued, “I think there is no excuse for your acting so strangely to the poor little girl, after all your attentions and long intimacy!”
“But, Miss Pimpernell,” I commenced; however, she quickly interrupted me.
“‘But me no buts,’ Frank Lorton,” she said, with more determination and severity than she had ever used to me since I had known her. “I’m quite angry with you. You have disappointed all my expectations, when I thought I knew your character so well, too! Learn, that there is no one I despise so much as a male flirt. Oh, Frank! I did not think you had a grain of such little-mindedness in you! I believed you to be straightforward, and earnest, and true. I’m sadly disappointed in you, my boy; sadly disappointed!” and she shook her head reproachfully.
It was very hard being attacked in this way, when I had come for consolation!
I had thought myself to be the injured party, whose wounds would have been bound up, and oil and wine inpoured by the good Samaritan to whom I had always looked as my staunchest ally; yet, here she was, upbraiding me as a heartless deceiver, a rôle which I had never played in my life!
I did not know what to make of it.
What was she driving at?
“I assure you, Miss Pimpernell,” I said with all the earnestness which the circumstances really warranted, “that I have not behaved in any way, to my knowledge, of which you might be ashamed for my sake. I came in this evening to ask your sympathy; and, here, you accuse me like this, without waiting to hear a word I have to say! Miss Pimpernell, you are unjust to me. I will go.”