"Karen," he retorted very quietly, "a man of my sort isn't impudent. But, possibly, he might be insolent—if he chooses. And perhaps I shall choose."
Checked, her lips still quivering, the girl, despite her anger, understood what he meant—knew that she was confronting a man of her own caste, where insolence indeed might happen, but nothing more plebeian.
"I—spoke to you as though you were an American," she said slowly. "I forgot——"
"I am answering you as an American!" he interrupted drily. "Make no mistake about that country; it breeds plenty of men who have every right to answer you as I do!"
She bit her lip; her eyes filled and she averted her face. Presently the cab stopped.
"We're at the station," he said briefly.
Whether Guild had paid for the entire compartment or whether it happened so she did not inquire, but they had the place to themselves, so far.
Guild paid no further attention to her except to lay a couple of Tauchnitz novels beside her on the seat. After that he opened a newspaper which he had brought away with him from the Consulate, and began to read it without troubling to ask her permission.
As the paper hid his perfectly expressionless face she ventured to glance at it from time to time. It was the New York Herald and on the sheet turned toward her she was perfectly able to read something that interested her and sent faint shivers creeping over her as she ended it: