“I don’t mean to worry you,” she said in a low voice. “Of course if you really feel that I worry you, I had better leave you alone.”
“You do annoy me dreadfully. I liked you very much yesterday, but I feel now that you are watching me all the time, and I can’t stand it. Do let me alone. Aren’t you going out? I know it is not necessary for you to spend all your time in study; but I am different. Do go and leave me. I don’t wish to be ungrateful; but I wish you would let me have the room to myself for a little.”
“I shall go by and by,” said Leslie coldly. She was more hurt than she cared to own. She left Annie’s window, and, going to her own side of the room, took up a novel and tried to bury herself in its contents. The other girls had promised to sing out to her, from the gravel sweep below, when they were ready. Until then, she would remain in her own side of the room, notwithstanding Annie’s objection to her doing so.
Annie went on muttering to herself, rustling her papers, and turning the leaves of her books; once or twice she dropped her pen; once a moan as bitter and laden with sorrow as those she uttered in the night burst from her lips. Leslie heard the moan, and found it impossible to forget her. She felt restless and unlike herself. After a time she got up, put her book back in its place, and walked to the door.
“Ah! thank goodness you are going,” said Annie.
“Don’t you think, Annie, you are a little unkind to me?” replied Leslie.
“Oh, what does a little unkindness matter?” said
Annie. “Do you mind, as you are leaving the room, shutting that window. I have been enduring the tortures of a draught for the last hour, and have lately been suffering from neuralgia.”
“Oh, you poor thing,” said Leslie, penitent at once, “why did you not tell me so, or,” she added, “why did you not shut your own window?”
“Because I require fresh air,” said Annie, with that utter selfishness which had characterized her before Leslie came, and which had been growing a little better lately.