He spoke in a half-jesting manner, but his ironical voice challenged me.
I felt I detested him, and he should know why.
'I expected to be misunderstood,' I returned coldly, 'but hardly to be accused of hysterical goodness. To be sure, a girl will do anything nowadays to get herself talked about!'
'Oh,' in a low voice, 'that rascal! But I will be even with him. How many more of my speeches did Cunliffe repeat?'
'Oh, I had heard enough,' I replied hastily. 'Does it not strike you as a little hard, Mr. Hamilton, that one should be judged beforehand in this harsh manner?—that because some girls are full of vagaries, the whole sex must be condemned?'
'Oh, if you put it in that cut-and-dried way, I must plead guilty: in fact, I should owe you some sort of apology, only'—with a stress on the word—'my speech was not intended for the house-top. I am rather a sceptic about female missions, Miss Garston, and do not always measure my words when I am discussing abstract theories with a friend. In my opinion Cunliffe is the one you ought to blame, though if the speech rankles I will take my share.'
'I certainly wish you had not said it, Mr. Hamilton.'
'There, now,'—in an injured voice,—'that is the way you treat my handsome apology, and I am not a man ever to own myself in the wrong, mind you. What does it matter, may I ask, what I think of girls in the abstract? I had not met you, Miss Garston, or discussed the subject in its bearings: so where may the offence lie? Of course you have no answer ready; of course you have taken offence where none is meant. This is so like a woman—to undertake to renovate society, and lose her temper at the first adverse word.'
He was looking at me with a peculiar but not unkindly smile as he spoke; in fact, his expression was almost pleasant; but I was too much prejudiced to be softened. I did not care in the least what he thought of my temper; I was quite sure he had one of his own.
'No one likes to meet discouragement on the threshold,' I answered curtly.