"Good afternoon, Miss Cairns," Katherine returned. "Please take the arm chair. It is more comfortable than the others."
"Thank you. I can't stay long. I have been trying to see you for the last week; ever since your accident, in fact. Glad to see you better. I sent you some fruit and flowers. Tried to make you understand that I was anxious about you." Leslie paused. Her small stock of politeness was already threatening to desert her. She despised Katherine for her poverty. Now she disliked her even more because she had injured her.
"I thank you for the fruit and flowers. I asked the nurse to thank you for me when I received them. I have met with so many kindnesses since I—since I was hurt." Katherine referred to the injury she had received through Leslie's recklessness with some hesitancy.
"You understand, don't you, that I wasn't really to blame for your accident?" The question was put to Katherine with brusque directness. "I was driving a little faster than usual to escape the storm. I was well within the speed limit. Remember that. I fail to understand why you girls didn't hear my horn. It sounded clearly, even above the storm."
"I did not hear it." Katherine fixed her clear eyes squarely upon the other girl. "I heard Jerry scream 'Look out!' and then the car struck me."
"Hm! Well, all I can say is you girls should not have been strung across the road as you were," was Leslie's bold criticism.
"We were walking only on the half of the road used by cars coming toward us," was Katherine's quietly defensive rejoinder. "But it doesn't matter, Miss Cairns. I do not intend to make any trouble for you. I hope all excitement of the accident has died down before this."
"It will be dropped unless that crowd of girls you go with keep stirring it up," retorted Leslie. "I wish you would ask them to let it drop. Since you are willing to, why shouldn't they be? I wasn't to blame. Start an inquiry and the result will be we'll not be allowed to keep our cars at college. That will hit some of your friends as well as myself and mine."
"I give you my word that I shall drop the matter. I know my friends have no desire to keep it active. I say this in their defense. I cannot allow you to misunderstand or belittle their principles."
Katherine spoke with marked stiffness. She could endure Leslie's supercilious manner toward herself. When it came to laying the fault at the door of her beloved friends—that was not to be borne.