"If I have been rude and uncivil, you are to blame as much as I—and more," he retorted angrily.
"Indeed?" she said, in a tone of lofty disdain, and an amused smile played round the corners of her mouth. She was interested in the young man in spite of his incivility. Now that she had an opportunity of looking more closely at him, she could not deny that he had no common face, while his speech was quite correct, and not lacking in dignity.
"I hope I am not so churlish as not to be willing to do a kindness to anybody," he went on rapidly, "but I resent being treated as dirt by such as you."
"Indeed? I was not aware——" she began, but he interrupted her.
"If you had asked me to open the gate I would have done so gladly, and been proud to do it," he went on; "but because I belong to what you are pleased to call the lower orders, you cannot ask; you command, and you expect to be obeyed."
"Of course I expect to be obeyed," she said, arching her eyebrows and smiling brightly, "and I am surprised that you——"
"No doubt you are," he interrupted angrily. "But if we are lacking in good manners, so are you," and he turned and leaped off the stile into the field.
"Come back, you foolish young man."
But if he heard, he did not heed; with his eyes fixed on a distant farmhouse, he stalked steadily on, never turning his head either to the right or the left.
For a moment or two she looked after him, an amused smile dimpling her cheeks; then she turned her attention to the gate.