But this application was so shabby and insolent!
What could he take me for? That I should suppose his placing me with Cousin
Monica constituted her my guardian? Why, he must fancy me the merest baby.
There was a kind of stupid cunning in this that disgusted my good-nature
and outraged my self-importance.
'You won't gi'e me that, then?' he said, looking down again, with a frown,
and working his mouth and cheeks about as I could fancy a man rolling a
piece of tobacco in his jaw.
'Certainly _not_, sir,' I replied.
'_Take_ it, then,' he replied, still looking down, very black and
discontented.
I joined Mary Quince, extremely angry. As I passed under the carved oak
arch of the vestibule, I saw his figure in the deepening twilight. The
picture remains in its murky halo fixed in memory. Standing where he last
spoke in the centre of the hall, not looking after me, but downward, and,
as well as I could see, with the countenance of a man who has lost a game,
and a ruinous wager too--that is black and desperate. I did not utter a
syllable on the way up. When I reached my room, I began to reconsider the
interview more at my leisure.
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