“Beeause they suit me better, and I can afford it.”
“It’s really because you want them individualized for you, isn’t it?”
“Yes; I suppose so.”
“Then why do you always get your mental clothes ready-made?”
“I don’t think I understand, Miss Polly,” he said gently.
“It seems to me that all your ideas and estimates and standards are of stock pattern,” she explained relentlessly. “Inside, you’re as just exactly so as a pair of wooden shoes. Can’t you see that you can’t judge all men on the same plane?”
“I see that you’re angry with me, and I see that I’m being punished for what I said about—about Mr. Perkins. If I’d known that you took any interest in him, I’d have bitten my tongue in two before speaking as I did. As for the message, if you wish it, I’ll go to him—”
“Oh, that doesn’t matter,” she interrupted.
“This much I can say, in honesty,” continued the Southerner, with an effort: “I had a talk, almost an encounter, with him in the plaza, and I don’t believe he is the coward I thought him.”
His intent to be fair to the object of his scorn was so genuine that his critic felt a swift access of compunction.