He didn't know what to make of her;
she was an astounding young phenomenon. The other time came back to him
afresh, and how she had stood up at Miss Birdseye's; it occurred to him
that an element, here, had been wanting. Several moments after she had
ceased speaking he became conscious that the expression of his face
presented a perceptible analogy to a broad grin. He changed his posture,
saying the first thing that came into his head. "I presume you do
without your father now."
"Without my father?"
"To set you going, as he did that time I heard you."
"Oh, I see; you thought I had begun a lecture!" And she laughed, in
perfect good humour. "They tell me I speak as I talk, so I suppose I
talk as I speak. But you mustn't put me on what I saw and heard in
Europe. That's to be the title of an address I am now preparing, by the
way. Yes, I don't depend on father any more," she went on, while
Ransom's sense of having said too sarcastic a thing was deepened by her
perfect indifference to it. "He finds his patients draw off about
enough, any way. But I owe him everything; if it hadn't been for him, no
one would ever have known I had a gift--not even myself. He started me
so, once for all, that I now go alone."
"You go beautifully," said Ransom, wanting to say something agreeable,
and even respectfully tender, to her, but troubled by the fact that
there was nothing he could say that didn't sound rather like chaff.
There was no resentment in her, however, for in a moment she said to
him, as quickly as it occurred to her, in the manner of a person
repairing an accidental omission, "It was very good of you to come so
far.
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