Against Rosalind Earle I still nursed some foolish resentment. She had wished that I might have to eat humble pie. Well, her wish had come to pass; and I felt almost as though it were her fault that it had done so. She had said she didn't like me any more, and didn't care to have me call upon her any more. I took her at her word, and staid away, regarding myself in the light of a much-abused and injured person. So three or four weeks elapsed, and she and I never met. Then... Toward six o'clock one evening I was seated in the parlor, poring over my _Complete Phonogacipher_, when the door from the shop opened with a creak, and a light footstep became audible behind my chair. The next instant I heard Rosalind's voice, low and gentle, call my name.
My heart began to flutter. I got up and turned around, and saw the dear little girl standing a yard distant from me, with her hand extended for me to take, and with her beautiful dark eyes fixed appealingly upon my face. I didn't speak; and I pretended not to see her hand; and I just stood still there, mute and pouting, like the sulky coxcomb and simpleton that I was.
Rosalind allowed her hand to drop to her side, and a very pained look came over her face; and there was a frog in her voice, as she said, "O, Gregory! you--you are still angry with me."
"O, no! I'm not angry with you," I answered, but in an offish tone; and that was true; I really wasn't angry with her the least bit any more. All my anger had evaporated at the sight of her face and the sound of her voice. But I didn't know how to unbend gracefully and without loss of dignity.
"Then--then why haven't you been to see me?" she asked.
"You said you didn't want me to come to see you any more."
"But I didn't mean it. You must have known I didn't mean it."
"But you said it, anyhow. I don't care to go where I'm not wanted. When people say a thing, how am I to know they don't mean it?"
"But I said it when I was vexed. And what people say when they're vexed--other people ought not to count it. It isn't fair. And really and truly, Gregory, I didn't mean it; and I'm sorry I said it; and I'm sorry I spoke to you the way I did; and--and that's why I've come here, Gregory; I've come to ask your pardon."