"How extraordinary that it should turn out to be you!" she began again, first of the two to recover her composure. "Did you think--were you, that is, on your way to visit _us_?"
"Nothing was further from my thoughts," he answered, bluntly. "I, on the contrary, believed myself to be going in the opposite direction from where you live."
"Of course," she said, somewhat piqued. "It is impossible you should have known that papa and I came yesterday on a visit to dear old Cousin Josephus. I beg your pardon if I was very rude."
"It is certainly not a welcome that seems inspired by what I have been led to think is Virginia cordiality," he answered, coolly.
"But I have asked your pardon, and that's not the way to answer me. You might grant it, never so stiffly; and after that, we, being thrown together this way through no fault of either of us, might agree to be decently civil before papa, who can have no idea how I feel toward--I mean what my reasons are for feeling--well, never mind what I mean," she ended, vexed at his immobility.
"I quite join with you in thinking it would be very silly to take any one else into this armed neutrality of ours. I shall at the earliest moment, to-morrow, relieve you of my presence. Suppose, until then, you try to treat me as you would another unoffending man under my circumstances."
"Yes. You are right. It would be better, and it would not worry papa and Cousin Josephus," she said, reflectively. "Well, then, if you were another man, I should begin by asking you what brought you to Virginia. No; that would not be at all polite, would it? I think I shall just say nothing at all."
"Not till you let me assure you that I came because a fellow I know told me he had made a driving tour in this part, last year, with his wife, and had found it rather nice--and another reason was, that I wanted to get away from myself."
"You are very flattering to our State," she said, bridling her head after a fashion he found both comical and sweet. She was silent a little while, then resumed, more gently:
"I was thinking of what you last said, and maybe I have done you an injustice. Maybe you are to be pitied more than blamed."
"Do you mean because I spoiled a good suit of clothes and hurt my horse's leg?"