Faraday made the usual excuses, and did quail before her cold and steady eyes.
"That's rather funny," she said, as he concluded "for now you're used to your new position, and it must go more easily, and yet you have less time to see your friends than you did at first."
Faraday made more excuses, and wondered that she should take a cruel pleasure in such small teasing.
"I thought p'r'aps," she said, still regarding him with an unflinching scrutiny, her face grave and almost hard, "that you'd begun to find us too Western, that the novelty had worn off, that our ways were too—too—what shall I say?—too wild and woolly."
A flush of anger ran over Faraday's face. "Your suppositions were neither just nor true," he said, coldly.
"Oh, I don't know," she continued, with a careless movement of her head, and speaking in the high, indifferent tone that a woman adopts when she wishes to be exasperating; "you needn't get mad. Lots of Eastern people feel that way. They come out here and see us constantly, and make friends with us, and then go back and laugh at us, and tell their friends what barbarians we are. It's customary, and nothing to be ashamed of."
"Do you suppose that I am that sort of an Eastern person?" asked Faraday, quietly.
"I don't know," she said, doubtfully. "I didn't think you were at first, but now——"
"But now you do. Why?"
"Because you don't come here any more," she said, with a little air of triumph. "You're tired of us. The novelty is over and so are the visits."