"
Bibbs drew a long breath and waited till he could command his voice.
"I've never been able to apologize quickly," he said, with his
accustomed slowness, "because if I try to I stammer. My brother
Roscoe whipped me once, when we were boys, for stepping on his
slate-pencil. It took me so long to tell him it was an accident,
he finished before I did."
Mary Vertrees had never heard anything quite like the drawling,
gentle voice or the odd implication that his not noticing the
motionless state of their vehicle was an "accident." She had formed
a casual impression of him, not without sympathy, but at once she
discovered that he was unlike any of her cursory and vague imaginings
of him. And suddenly she saw a picture he had not intended to paint
for sympathy: a sturdy boy hammering a smaller, sickly boy, and the
sickly boy unresentful. Not that picture alone; others flashed before
her. Instantaneously she had a glimpse of Bibbs's life and into his
life. She had a queer feeling, new to her experience, of knowing him
instantly. It startled her a little; and then, with some surprise,
she realized that she was glad he had sat so long, after getting into
the coupe, before he noticed that it had not started.
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