"Won't you get in and let me drive you home, Miss Loo?" His victory had
put him in a good humour, without, however, altering his critical
estimate of the girl. The quiet, controlled tone of his voice chilled
and pained her, but her emotions were too recent and too acute to be
restrained.
"Oh, George!" she said, leaning forward against the buggy, and scanning
his face intently. "How can you speak so? You ain't hurt, are you?"
"No!" he answered lightly. "You didn't expect I should be, did you?" The
tone was cold, a little sarcastic even.
Again she felt hurt; she scarcely knew why; the sneer was too far-
fetched for her to understand it.
"Go and put the horse up, and then come back. I'll wait right here for
you."
He did as he was told, and in ten minutes was by her side again. After a
long pause, she began, with quivering lips:
"George, I'm sorry--so sorry. 'Twas all my fault! But I didn't know"--
and she choked down a sob--"I didn't think.
"I want you to tell me how your sisters act and--an' what they wear and
do. I'll try to act like them. Then I'd be good, shouldn't I?
"They play the pianner, don't they?" He was forced to confess that one
of them did.
"An' they talk like you?"
"Yes."
"An' they're good always? Oh, George, I'm jest too sorry for anythin',
an' now--now I'm too glad!" and she burst into tears. He kissed and
consoled her as in duty bound. He understood this mood as little as he
had understood her challenge to love. He was not in sympathy with her;
she had no ideal of conduct, no notion of dignity. Some suspicion of
this estrangement must have dawned upon the girl, or else she was
irritated by his acquiescence in her various phases of self-humiliation.
All at once she dashed the tears from her eyes, and winding herself out
of his arms, exclaimed:
"See here, George Bancroft! I'll jest learn all they know--pianner and
all. I ken, and I will. I'll begin right now. You'll see!" And her blue
eyes flashed with the glitter of steel, while her chin was thrown up in
defiant vanity and self-assertion.
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