There was a trembling intake of her breath. He could catch the sparkle of
her eyes, and knew that she had flown into one of her sudden, fiery
passions. And it warmed his heart to hear her.
"I'd like to know what kind of people they are, anyway! I'd like to meet
up with that Elizabeth Cornish, the--"
"She's the finest woman that ever breathed," said Terry simply.
"You say that," she pondered slowly, "after she sent you away?"
"She did only what she thought was right. She's a little hard, but very
just, Kate."
She was shaking her head; the hair had become a dull and wonderful gold
in the faint moonshine.
"I dunno what kind of a man you are, Terry. I didn't ever know a man
could stick by--folks--after they'd been hurt by 'em. I couldn't do it. I
ain't got much Bible stuff in me, Terry. Why, when somebody does me a
wrong, I hate 'em--I hate 'em! And I never forgive 'em till I get back at
'em." She sighed. "But you're different, I guess. I begin to figure that
you're pretty white, Terry Hollis."
There was something so direct about her talk that he could not answer. It
seemed to him that there was in her a cross between a boy and a man--the
simplicity of a child and the straightforward strength of a grown man,
and all this tempered and made strangely delightful by her own unique
personality.
"But I guessed it the first time I looked at you," she was murmuring. "I
guessed that you was different from the rest."
She had her elbow on her knee now, and, with her chin cupped in the
graceful hand, she leaned toward him and studied him.
"When they're clean-cut on the outside, they're spoiled on the inside.
They're crooks, hard ones, out for themselves, never giving a rap about
the next gent in line. But mostly they ain't even clean on the outside,
and you can see what they are the first time you look at 'em.
"Oh, I've liked some of the boys now and then; but I had to make myself
like 'em. But you're different. I seen that when you started talking. You
didn't sulk; and you didn't look proud like you wanted to show us what
you could do; and you didn't boast none. I kept wondering at you while I
was at the piano. And--you made an awful hit with me, Terry."
Again he was too staggered to reply. And before he could gather his wits,
the girl went on:
"Now, is they any real reason why you shouldn't get out of here tomorrow
morning?"
It was a blow of quite another sort.
"But why should I go?"
She grew very solemn, with a trace of sadness in her voice.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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