“Is this a jest?” I inquired. “If so, you must allow me to observe that I don’t think it is quite in the best of taste.”
“If it were a jest, it would be in the very worst of taste. But it is not a jest, and you know it.”
Really, he was even more dignified than I was. Had I not known it was impossible, I might have supposed that he was snubbing me on account of the suggestion I had made. As if it had not been the most reasonable one in the world. I said nothing. The truth is, I could think of nothing to say. The position was such an excessively peculiar one, that I did not feel myself at once capable of treating him with the crushing scorn which I was becoming rapidly conscious he deserved. What he imagined my silence meant, I cannot say; but though it seems nearly incredible, I am almost drawn to the conclusion that he took it to imply encouragement. The calm way in which he went on talking forces me to think it.
“I do not fancy we have had very happy lives, either you or I. I take it that we have both led Robinson Crusoe sort of existences, on desert islands of our own. I am a lonely man; you are a lonely girl.”
“I a lonely girl! Are you forgetting that I have four sisters and a mother?”
“No; I am not forgetting it. But one may have a host of mere relations, and yet be all alone.”
“Mere relations!” I liked the word. I began to bristle all over. How dare he speak of my four sisters—not to mention mamma!—as “mere” relations. His assurance was increasing. I had never supposed him capable of such audacity.
“I will trouble you to speak of my family with respect, Mr Morgan, and not as if they were persons of absolutely no account.”
“Nothing was further from my wish than to speak of any member of your family with disrespect. But I think that even you will admit that, even in your own home, you are alone.”
It made me furious to hear him say so,—even though it might be true. It was no business of anybody’s how my own people chose to treat me; they had no right to even notice. Nothing is more unpleasant than to have a stranger spying on what happens to you in the bosom of your own family. And so I longed to tell him.