There were two things most exasperating to Miss Standish,—one to be supposed to know what she did not and thereby to be cheated of acquiring the information, the other to be suspected of not knowing what she remembered perfectly.
"Not know Tilly Marsden! Well, you must think I am losing my faculties. I wish you would not waste your time in telling things I know as well as you do; but what I would like to hear is how she came to be in this house."
"Mr. Flint brought her," answered Winifred, with unkind brevity.
"Ah!" commented Miss Standish, with an upward inflection, "and did he explain how it happened that she was under his protection?"
"I did not insult him by inquiring," flashed Winifred, "and I will not have him insulted in my presence."
Miss Standish looked at the girl over her glasses, as if she suspected her of having lost her wits. We are all of us surprised by a response which seems to us vehement beyond the proximate cause of the present occasion; we fail to allow for the slow-gathering irritation, the unseen sources of excitement which collect in the caverns of the mind like fire-damp ready to explode at the naked flame of one flickering candle. Winifred had the grace to be instantly ashamed [Pg 344] of her impulsive irritability. She had already set before herself the standard of self-control which she saw and reverenced in Flint.
"Excuse me," she said. "I was awake almost all night, and am tired and nervous. Mr. Flint met Tilly Marsden by accident in the street. She did not know where to go, and so he brought her here. My father approved," she added a little haughtily.
"But why did she appeal to Mr. Flint?" pursued Miss Standish, who clung to her inquiries like a burr.
"Because she was in love with him," blurted out Winifred, irritated beyond the power of silence. "Can't you see! This was why I asked him to leave Nepaug last summer."