“Certainly not,” she exclaimed. “What do you take me for? Of course, I perfectly understand. The boy shall get ready at once.”
Theodore looked straight in front of him.
“I only wanted to say,” he went on, doggedly, “that my mother’s anxiety is not irrational. She is quite unaccustomed to travelling herself, and we have never been parted before.”
Ursula stood still on the Manor-house steps. “Never been parted before!” she exclaimed. “Woe is me, what have I done?”
Theodore blushed in fresh waves of crimson. “Now you are laughing at me,” he said, and his tone was distinctly annoyed. “You mustn’t laugh at me. I am not at all accustomed to the society of ladies, and if you laugh at me we shall not be able to get on.”
“No—no, I really meant it,” Ursula hastened to say. “I honestly fear I have been exceedingly inconsiderate. I wish that your mother had accompanied you.” (“Oh dear, no,” she reflected; “there the expense comes in again!”) “But you must not say you are unaccustomed to the society of ladies—”
“My mother is not a lady like you,” he remarked, quickly.
“I am Ursula Rovers,” she replied—“the pastor’s daughter. I remember Mevrouw van Helmont very well.”