“That is a matter of opinion,” Henrietta said loftily. She held out her hand. “The letter, sir, if you please.”
“One favour, I beg,” he said, with a gesture that deprecated her impatience. He waved the groom out of hearing. “This is not a fit place for you or”—with a return of dignity—“for the business on which I am here. Do me the favour of seeing me within or of walking a few yards with me. There is a seat by the lake, if you will not admit me to your apartments.”
She frowned at him. But she saw the wisdom of concluding the matter, and she led the way into the road and turned to the right. Immediately, however, she remembered that the Ambleside road would lead her to the spot where Captain Clyne had taken leave of her, and she turned and walked the other way until she came to the place where the Troutbeck lane diverged. There she stood.
“The letter, if you please,” she said. She spoke with the contemptuous hardness which youth, seldom considerate of others’ feelings, is prone to display.
He held it an instant in his hand as if he could not bear to part with it. But at last, with a dismal look and an abject sentence or two, he gave it up.
“I beg you, I implore you,” he muttered as she took it, “to announce no hasty decision. To believe that I am something more and better than you think me now. And that ill as I have set myself before you, I would fain labour to show myself more—more worthy!”
The words were so strange, his manner was so puzzling, that they pierced the armour of her dislike. She paused, staring at him.
“Worthy!” she exclaimed. “Worthy of what?”
“The letter——”
“Yes, the letter will tell me.”