“Forgive me,� he said, in a low voice, but with less self-control, “I came here a poor man; it was necessary to make my bread, and I would have swept offices to do it. I asked nothing and I received�—he smiled with exceeding bitterness—“nothing. Then, unhappily, Judge Hollis found out that I was well-born; he told a few people that I was a gentleman. It was a serious mistake; I have been treated like a dog ever since.� He was thrashing the wayside brush with his stick, and unconsciously beheaded a dozen flowers; they fell at Diana’s feet, but neither of them looked down. “I do not wish to force myself upon your acquaintance, Miss Royall,� he went on, the torrent of pent-up passion unspent. “I understand the reason of your condescension at the ball, but couldn’t you have found a more agreeable way to chastise your cousin? I must have been insufferable?�
The intensity of the man’s wounded pride had forced itself upon Diana; she was crimson with mortification, yet she understood him—understood him with a temperamental sympathy that sent a thrill of alarm through her consciousness. “I never knew before how very bad my manners were,� she said simply.
He turned and looked at her. All that was womanly and beautiful in her face was crystallized in the colorless atmosphere; her eyes dwelt upon him with a kindness that was at once new and wholly unbearable. “I’m a cub!� he retorted harshly; “how you must hate me!�
“On the contrary,� she said very sweetly, “I like you.�
Their eyes met with a challenge of angry pride, then a whimsical smile quivered at the corners of her mouth, and she clasped her hands innocently over her ferns. “When you begin to like me we shall be friends,� she said.
There was an instant of awkward silence, and then they both laughed, not happily, but with a nervous quiver that suggested hysterical emotion.
“I do not know when I began—to dislike you,� he said.
“I deserved it from the first, I fancy,� she retorted, hurrying on with her determination to show her repentance; “I have behaved like a snob.�
He did not reply; he stooped, instead, to pick up the flowers that he had broken. “My mother would never step on a flower or leave it to die in the road,� he explained simply; “whenever I remember it I pick them up. As a boy I recollect thinking that there was some significance in it, that I must not leave them to die.�
Diana looked at him curiously, from under her lashes. What manner of man was he? “It is a sweet thought,� she said, “in a woman—a tenderness of heart.�