"I don't know when and I don't know why," the doctor made answer, looking at the young woman. "I suppose it was when I discovered that she had lost her sisterly regard for me, though I don't know exactly when that was."
"Wasn't it last night?" Miss May asked, giving him a straight look. But not in the least was he daunted by it. "Last night? Let me see," he went on, pretending to muse. "Oh, I don't know but it was. We had a little dispute then," he added, turning to Old Miss. "But it was not serious."
"What is it?" Old Miss asked, looking up at a house-maid who had just entered.
"Mr. Marston is in the parlor," the maid answered. Miss May jumped up and ran to her room to adorn herself for his reception, and the doctor, following her with his eyes as she ran up the stairway in the hall, could not conceal the dark bitterness in his heart. Old Master looked on and was silent until Miss May had quite disappeared upon the upper landing and then coming out of his muse with a sudden jerking of his hand which lay upon the table, he said: "It appears to me that his visits are becoming frequent, Madam."
Old Miss smiled, as I had seen her smile some time before when it was incidentally mentioned by someone that the man Marston owned a large sugar plantation in Louisiana. "Yes," she replied, "and for one, I must say that I am pleased." And thereupon the doctor turned his head slowly and gave her a searching look. "I mean it," she said, smiling at him. But he did not smile in return; he rattled his fork upon his plate and sat in silence. My young master was turned about so that I could see his face. The sullen discomfiture of the doctor was pleasing to him, and with a sudden motion of his hand, a forensic gesture which was now unconscious with him (so surely was oratory taking possession of him) said straight at Old Master:
"I don't see why so much import should attach to a few visits. One might suppose that my sister had been living apart from social influences when the fact is that young men have for years ridden from the valleys and the knobs to call upon her. I hope you do not wish to get her off your hands?"
Old Master was rolling a bit of bread between his thumb and finger, a habit with him. And he looked up, still rolling it, and with a mischievous light in his eye, asked if anyone had seen his daughter posted for sale.
"I won't put up with such talk as this," Old Miss declared. "Robert, you and your father would make me out a heathen. Offered for sale, indeed. General, I am ashamed of you."