'I'm so glad aunt asked you,' she said gravely. 'I wanted you to come. I want you to know. Won't you, please?'
He looked at her, but she didn't turn. There was more behind her words. Even Henry could see that. He had been discussed. As a problem. But she didn't say the rest of it.
Then his clumsy little artifice broke down, and the crude feeling rushed to the surface.
'You know I mustn't come!' he cried.
'No,' said she, with that deliberate gravity. 'I don't know that. I think you should.'
'I can't. You don't understand. They wouldn't like it, my being there. They talk about me. They don't speak to me, even.'
'Then oughtn't you to come? Face them? Show them that it isn't true?'
'But that will just make it hard for you.'
She was slow in answering this; seemed to be considering it. Finally she replied with:—
'I don't think I care about that. People have been awfully nice to me here. I'm having a lovely time. But it isn't as if I had always lived here and expected to stay for the rest of my life. My life has been different. I've known a good many different kinds of people, and I've had to think for myself a good deal. No, I'd like you to come. If you don't come—-don't you see?—you're putting me with them. You're making me mean and petty. I don't want to be that way. If—if I'm to see you at all, they must know it.'