They seem to me poor creatures."
And, indeed, her uppermost feeling in regard to them was a kind of cold
scorn; she thought most of them palterers and bullies. The end of the
colloquy was that Verena, having assented, with her usual docility, to
her companion's optimistic contention that it was a "phase," this taste
for evening-calls from collegians and newspaper-men, and would
consequently pass away with the growth of her mind, remarked that the
injustice of men might be an accident or might be a part of their
nature, but at any rate she should have to change a good deal before she
should want to marry.
About the middle of December Miss Chancellor received a visit from
Matthias Pardon, who had come to ask her what she meant to do about
Verena. She had never invited him to call upon her, and the appearance
of a gentleman whose desire to see her was so irrepressible as to
dispense with such a preliminary was not in her career an accident
frequent enough to have taught her equanimity. She thought Mr. Pardon's
visit a liberty; but, if she expected to convey this idea to him by
withholding any suggestion that he should sit down, she was greatly
mistaken, inasmuch as he cut the ground from under her feet by himself
offering her a chair.
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