Normally his tone would have sparked a tinder in me. I would have flared an ugliness of anger and he would then have been able to evict me with pleasure and good conscience. We might even have edged into a quarrel with passion and violence. That would be only normal, except that the beauty and the quiet made me slow to respond with resentment, and in my hesitation I lost it. I said, “I knew it must be private. I was about to look for someone to ask permission or maybe pay to rest here.”
Proverbs 15:1 -- “A soft word turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.”
