"Did you——" he bit his lip. "Did you come here to scare me?" he demanded.
She put down the dishes.
"What do you mean, Mr. Beekman?"
"Because I haven't any money, you know."
"Mr. Beekman!"
She put her hand before her face, and he saw that he had been wrong.
"I beg your pardon," he sulkily said. "In the circumstances, it wasn't an unnatural supposition, though my mother thoroughly understands my manner of life; but I see now that I shouldn't have said it."
He paused, and then, because he hated to be in the wrong, he hunted about for another excuse for attack, and, finding one, became more angry than before.
"Only how dared you," he asked, "how did you dare to come into this house?"
Violet bowed her russet head.