“Stop! I am trying very hard to keep my temper. We have had scenes enough to-night. My mother is ill and she must not be disturbed again. If you do not go to your room and pack and leave at once, I shall call Mr. Ginn and have you put out, just as you are. I am giving you that opportunity. You had better avail yourself of it. I mean what I say.”
She looked as if she did. Cousin Percy evidently thought so. His humbleness disappeared.
“So?” he snarled angrily. “So that's it, eh? What do you think I am?”
Gertrude's eyes flashed. She bit her lip. When she spoke it was with deliberate distinctness. Every word was as sharp and cold as an icicle.
“Do you wish to know what I think you are?” she asked. “What I thought at the very beginning you were, and what I have been taking pains to make sure of ever since I came to this house? Very well, I'll tell you.”
She told him, slowly, calmly, and with biting exactness. His face was flushed when she began; when she finished it was white.
“That is what you are,” she said. “I do not merely think so. I have studied you carefully; I have stooped to associate with you in order to study you; I have studied you through your friends; I KNOW what you are.”
His anger and mortification were choking him.
“You—you—” he snarled. “So that is it, is it? You have been using me as a good thing. As a—as a—”
“As you have used my father and mother and their simple-minded goodness and generosity. Yes, I have.”