"Perhaps I can't be expected to know my own mind; or ought not to be trusted with the spending of my own money?"
"No, I didn't mean that; but you might not have known exactly what you were being let in for; and it is a good deal of money for a girl to pay."
"And in fact you don't think a girl ought to be allowed to spend her money without some wise person of the superior sex to guide her hand? Thank you very much, Mr. Heron, but I think I may have my own way in this at least. I have often told you that I left Keeton because I could not stand the control of wiser and better persons than myself. I am not at all a good girl, Mr. Heron; I never said I was. The counsels of the wise are sadly thrown away on me, I fear."
She spoke in a hard and ungenial tone, which he had not heard her use before. He could not help looking at her with an expression of wonder. She saw the expression and understood it.
"You are shocked at my want of sweet, feminine docility? I ought not to have any ideas of my own, I suppose?"
"No, I am not shocked, and I am not at all such a ridiculous person as you would seem to suppose, and I have none of the ideas you set down to me; but you don't seem quite like yourself, and you speak as if you were offended with me for something."
"Offended? Oh, no. How could I possibly be offended? I am very much obliged, on the contrary, for the trouble you take for one who seems to you quite unable to take care of herself."
Victor did not like her tone. There was something aggressive in it. He was not experienced enough in the ways of society to cry content to that which grieved his heart, and his thoughts therefore showed themselves pretty clearly in his face.
"I don't like Blanchet's taking all this money," he said, after a moment of silence. "I don't think a man ought to take such a helping hand as that from—well, from——"
"From a woman, you were going to say? Why not from a woman, Mr. Heron? Are we never to do a kind thing, we unfortunate creatures, because we are women and are young?"