Miss Reed: “That’s very sweet of you, though you don’t look it. Now, where was I? Oh, yes, do you think it was forth-putting at all, to ask him if he would give me the lessons?”
Miss Spaulding: “It depends upon why you asked him.”
Miss Reed: “I asked him from—from—Let me see; I asked him because—from—Yes, I say it boldly; I asked him from an enthusiasm for art, and a sincere wish to learn the use of oil, as he called it. Yes!”
Miss Spaulding: “Are you sure?”
Miss Reed: “Sure? Well, we will say that I am, for the sake of argument. And, having secured this basis, the question is whether I wasn’t bound to offer him pay at the end, and whether he wasn’t wrong to take my doing so in dudgeon.”
Miss Spaulding: “Yes, I think he was wrong. And the terms of his refusal were very ungentlemanly. He ought to apologize most amply and humbly.” At a certain expression in Miss Reed’s face, she adds, with severity: “Unless you’re keeping back the main point. You usually do. Are you?”
Miss Reed: “No, no. I’ve told you everything—everything!”
Miss Spaulding: “Then I say, as I said from the beginning, that he behaved very badly. It was very awkward and very painful, but you’ve really nothing to blame yourself for.”
Miss Reed, ruefully: “No-o-o!”
Miss Spaulding: “What do you mean by that sort of ‘No’?”