“I wish you would not regard me as a stranger.”
She looked puzzled.
“Not regard you as a stranger!” she repeated.
“No. I wish you’d look upon me as a friend; one who admires you and wants to—to do something for you.”
“But you are not my friend,” she said. Then, catching her breath a moment, she added, “You are an enemy.”
“I!” He was very much pained. He an enemy to this charming young girl!
“Yes, yes,” she said, with some vehemence. “You come here into our peaceful home and in one day—one minute—you break it all up, bring distress and pain upon us. You have no fine sense; you cannot even be insulted. You come again, again, perhaps again, though your presence we do not desire—”
She stopped short suddenly; her underlip quivered, and she bit it nervously with little, white teeth. She turned her back half towards young Saunders, and he could see from her trembling that she was on the verge of tears. He could only falter very earnestly:
“I am very sorry—very sorry.”
She did not speak again, and for some time they stood in silence, she with her head drooping away from him and he watching her eagerly. He knew she was waiting for him to go, and he was waiting for her to turn to him again. He wanted to see her eyes, those eyes which had flashed at him so wrathfully and then had become so suddenly misty and piteous.