Sanderson, during his visits to the Bartlett farm—and they became more frequent as time went on—would look at Anna with cold curiosity, not unmixed with contempt, when by chance they happened to be alone for a moment. But the girl never displayed by so much as the quiver of an eye-lash that she had ever seen him before.
Had Lennox Sanderson been capable of fathoming Anna Moore, or even of reading her present marble look or tone, he would have seen that he had little to apprehend from her beyond contempt, a thing he would not in the least have minded; but he was cunning, and like the cunning shallow. So he began to formulate plans for making things even with Anna—in other words, buying her off.
His admiration for Kate deepened in proportion as the square of that young woman's reserve increased. She was not only the first woman who refused to burn incense at his shrine, but also the first who frankly admitted that she found him amusing. She mildly guyed his accent, his manner of talking, his London clothes, his way of looking at things. Never having lived near a university town, she escaped the traditional hero worship. It was a new sensation for Sanderson, and eventually he succumbed to it.
"You know, Miss Kate," he said one day, "you are positively the most refreshing girl I have ever met. You don't know how much I love you."
Kate considered for a moment. There was a hint of patronage, it seemed to her, in his compliment, that she did not care for.
"Oh, consider the debt cancelled, Mr. Sanderson. You have not found my rustic simplicity any more refreshing than I have found your poster waistcoats."
"Why do you persist is misunderstanding and hurting me?"
"I apologize to your waistcoats, Mr. Sanderson. I have long considered them the substitute for your better nature."
"Better natures and that sort of thing have rather gone out of style, haven't they?"
"They are always out of style with people who never had them."