No one, within the knowledge of those present, had ever spoken so to Robert Grant Burns; no one had ever dreamed of speaking thus to him.

They had seen him when rage had mastered him and for slighter cause; it was not an experience that one would care to repeat.
Robert Grant Burns walked up to Jean as if he meant to lift her from the bench and hurl her by sheer brute force out of his way.

He stopped so close to her that his shadow covered her.
"Are you going to get out of the way so we can go on ?" he asked, in the tone of one who gives a last merciful chance of escape from impending doom.
"Are you going to explain why you're here, and apologize for your tone and manner, which are extremely rude ?" Jean did not pay his rage the compliment of a glance at him.

She was looking at the dainty beak of the little brown bird, and was telling herself that she could not be bullied into losing control of herself.

These two women should not have the satisfaction of calling her a crude, ignorant, country girl; and Robert Grant Burns should not have the triumph of browbeating her into yielding one inch of ground.