`` I have not been so upset in years . That -- that -- that pacifist has actually had the audacity to come up here and , in my own kitchen , to ask me to marry him . HIM ! '' Anne choked back a laugh . `` But -- Susan ! Could n't you have found a -- well , a less spectacular method of refusing him ? Think what a gossip this would have made if anyone had been going past and had seen such a performance . '' `` Indeed , Mrs. Dr. dear , you are quite right . I did not think of it because I was quite past thinking rationally . I was just clean mad . Come in the house and I will tell you all about it . '' Susan picked up her pot and marched into the kitchen , still trembling with wrathful excitement . She set her pot on the stove with a vicious thud . `` Wait a moment until I open all the windows to air this kitchen well , Mrs. Dr. dear . There , that is better . And I must wash my hands , too , because I shook hands with Whiskers-on-the-moon when he came in -- not that I wanted to , but when he stuck out his fat , oily hand I did not know just what else to do at the moment . I had just finished my afternoon cleaning and thanks be , everything was shining and spotless ; and thought I ` now that dye is boiling and I will get my rug rags and have them nicely out of the way before supper . ' `` Just then a shadow fell over the floor and looking up I saw Whiskers-on-the-moon , standing in the doorway , dressed up and looking as if he had just been starched and ironed . I shook hands with him , as aforesaid , Mrs. Dr. dear , and told him you and the doctor were both away . But he said , `` I have come to see you , Miss Baker . '
`` I asked him to sit down , for the sake of my own manners , and then I stood there right in the middle XXXXX the floor and gazed at him as contemptuously as I could .
about at because if in into of on that to