The words were uttered behind her. Turning round she gave a start, and became confused, even agitated, for a moment. Then she said in her usual undemonstrative manner, ‘O—is it really you, Charles?’
Without speaking again at once, and with a half-smile, the new-comer glanced her over. There was much criticism, and some resentment—even temper—in his eye.
‘I am going home,’ continued she. ‘But I have missed the boat.’
He scarcely seemed to take in the meaning of this explanation, in the intensity of his critical survey. ‘Teaching still? What a fine schoolmistress you make, Baptista, I warrant!’ he said with a slight flavour of sarcasm, which was not lost upon her.
‘I know I am nothing to brag of,’ she replied. ‘That’s why I have given up.’
‘O—given up? You astonish me.’
‘I hate the profession.’
‘Perhaps that’s because I am in it.’
‘O no, it isn’t. But I am going to enter on another life altogether. I am going to be married next week to Mr. David Heddegan.’
The young man—fortified as he was by a natural cynical pride and passionateness—winced at this unexpected reply, notwithstanding.