“Experimenting? I? I don’t know in the least what you mean!”
“Why did you tell me that the operator was a woman?”
“Because the other operator is,” he answered.
“There is a good deal of business there. They have to have two operators,” he explained, after a pause.
“Why, of course,” she murmured in deep humiliation. If he had suffered her to be silent as long as she would, she might have offered him some reparation; but he spoke.
“Why did you think I had been experimenting on you?” he asked.
“Why?” she repeated. The sense of having put herself in the wrong exasperated her with him. “Oh, I dare say you were curious. Don’t you suppose I have noticed that men are puzzled at me? What did you mean by saying that you thought I would be equal to anything?”
“I meant—I thought you would like to be treated frankly.”
“Oh!” she said. “You treat me upon a theory.”
“Don’t you like that? We treat everybody upon a theory”—
“And I should tell you the worst of anything at once, because I think you are one of the kind that don’t like to have their conclusions made for them.”
“And you would really let women make their own conclusions,” she said. “You are very peculiar!” She waited a while, and then she asked, “And what is your theory of me?”
“Indeed! You set up for a connoisseur of female character. That’s very common, nowadays. Why don’t you tell me something more about Yourself? We’re always talking about me.”
He might well have been doubtful of her humor. He seemed to decide that she was jesting, for he answered lightly, “Why, you began it.”
“I know I did, this time. But now I wish to stop it, too.”
He looked down at the tiller in his hands. “Well,” he said, “I should like to tell you about myself. I should like to know what you think of the kind of man I am. Will you be honest if I will?”
“That’s a very strange condition,” she answered, meeting and then avoiding the gaze he lifted to her face.
“Thank you. But I’m not under discussion now.”
“Well, in the first place,” he began, “I was afraid of you when we met.”
“That isn’t the word, perhaps. We’ll say ashamed of myself. Mrs. Maynard told me about you, and I thought you would despise me for not doing or being anything in particular. I thought you must.”