"I don't know that I quite like to hear you use that word."
"But you used it, just now, to me."
"It was an accident, then."
"Your father says 'thee' to me."
"He is of an older generation; my mother wore the Friends' dress. But those customs had a religious meaning for them to which I cannot pretend. With me it is a sort of instinct; I can't explain it, nor yet quite ignore it."
"Have I offended that particular instinct of yours which attaches to the word 'thee'?"
He seemed deeply chagrined. He was one who did not like to make mistakes, and he had no time to waste in apologizing and recovering lost ground.
"People do say it to us sometimes in fun, not knowing what the word means to us," said Phebe.
In the fresh winter air she was regaining her tone—escaping from him, Ludovic felt, into her own sweet, calm self-possession.
"Then you distinctly refuse me whatever—the least—that word implies? I am one of those who 'rush in'?"