branch, wondering
why it took Offitt so much longer than Bott to get an answer to a plain
question; but it never once occurred to him that he had a right to go
into his own house and participate in what conversation was going on.
To American fathers of his class, the parlor is sacred when the
daughter has company.

There were several reasons why Offitt stayed longer than Bott.

The seer had left Maud Matchin in a state of high excitement and anger.
The admiration of a man so splay and ungainly was in itself insulting,
when it became so enterprising as to propose marriage. She felt as if
she had suffered the physical contact of something not clean or
wholesome. Besides, she had been greatly stirred by his reference to
her request for ghostly counsel, which had resulted in so frightful a
failure and mortification. After Bott had gone, she could not dismiss
the subject from her mind. She said to herself, "How can I live, hating
a man as I hate that Captain Farnham? How can I breathe the same air
with him, blushing like a peony whenever I think of him, and turning
pale with shame when I hear his name? That ever I should have been
refused by a living man! What _does_ a man want," she asked, with her
head thrown back and her nostrils dilated, "when he don't want me?"

As she was walking to and fro, she glanced out of the window and saw
Offitt approaching from the direction of the shop. She knew instantly
what his errand would be, though he had never before said a word to her
out of the common. "I wonder if father has sent him to me--and how many
more has he got in reserve there in the shop? Well, I will make short
work of this one."

But when he had come in and taken his seat, she found it was not so
easy to make short work of him.

Dealing with this one was very different from dealing with the other--
about the difference between handling a pig and a panther. Offitt was a
human beast of prey--furtive, sly, and elusive, with all his faculties
constantly in hand. The sight of Maud excited him like the sight of
prey. His small eyes fastened upon her; his sinewy hands tingled to lay
hold of her. But he talked, as any casual visitor might, of immaterial
things.

Maud, while she chatted with him, was preparing herself for the
inevitable question and answer. "What shall I say to him? I do not like
him. I never did. I never can. But what shall I do? A woman is of no
use in the world by herself. He is not such a dunce as poor