“Saw what?”
“Saw you pretending to be a stranger to me.”
“When did I do that?”
“You did it when we met at the station.”
The reply was too ridiculous for the preservation of any control over my own sense of humor. It was wrong; but it was inevitable—I laughed. She looked at me with a fury, revealing a concentration of evil passion in her which I had not seen yet. I asked her pardon; I begged her to think a little before she persisted in taking a view of my conduct unworthy of her, and unjust to myself.
“Unjust to You!” she burst out. “Who are You? A man who has driven your trade has spies always at his command—yes! and knows how to use them. You were primed with private information—you had, for all I know, a stolen photograph of me in your pocket—before ever you came to our town. Do you still deny it? Oh, sir, why degrade yourself by telling a lie?”
No such outrage as this had ever been inflicted on me, at any time in my life. My forbearance must, I suppose, have been more severely tried than I was aware of myself. With or without excuse for me, I was weak enough to let a girl’s spiteful tongue sting me, and, worse still, to let her see that I felt it.
“You shall have no second opportunity, Miss Gracedieu, of insulting me.” With that foolish reply, I opened the door violently and went out.
She ran after me, triumphing in having roused the temper of a man old enough to have been her grandfather, and caught me by the arm. “Your own conduct has exposed you.” (That was literally how she expressed herself.) “I saw it in your eyes when we met at the station. You, the stranger—you who allowed poor ignorant me to introduce myself—you knew me all the time, knew me by sight!”
I shook her hand off with an inconsiderable roughness, humiliating to remember. “It’s false!” I cried. “I knew you by your likeness to your mother.”