"It is very likely, in this rifle dress I wear," said I smiling.
"Yet a man may dress as he pleases."
"You mistrust me for a spy?"
"If you are, why, you are but one more among many hereabouts. I think you have not been in Westchester very long. It does not matter. No boy with the face you wear was born to betray anything more important than a woman."
I turned hot and scarlet with chagrin at her cool presumption—and would not for worlds have had her see how the impudence stung and shamed me.
For a full minute she stood there watching me; then:
"I ask pardon," she said very gravely.
And somehow, when she said it I seemed to experience a sense of inferiority—which was absurd and monstrous, considering what she doubtless was.
It had now begun to rain in very earnest; and was like to rain harder ere the storm passed. My clothes being my best, I instinctively stepped into the doorway; and, of a sudden, she was there too, barring my entry, flushed and dangerous, demanding the reason of my intrusion.
"Why," said I astonished, "may I not seek shelter from a storm in a ruined sugar-house, without asking by your leave?"