"You speak too well." I was piqued.
She did not answer.

She smiled again and I grew angry.

In the cathedral she had smiled at the verger's commendation of particularly abominable restorations, and that smile had drawn me toward her, had emboldened me to offer deferential and condemnatory remarks as to the plaster-of-Paris mouldings.

You know how one addresses a young lady who is obviously capable of taking care of herself.

That was how I had come across her.
She had smiled at the gabble of the cathedral guide as he showed the obsessed troop, of which we had formed units, the place of martyrdom of Blessed Thomas, and her smile had had just that quality of superseder's contempt.