A little color did creep into her face at the unnecessary personal
construction put on her words. She frowned to hide her embarrassment and
thrust out her lips in a manner that showed she had little vanity as to
her features and their attractiveness.
"But I don't happen to be a young lady," she retorted; "and we think as we
please up here in the bush. Maybe your proper young ladies would be very
odd, too, if they were brought up out here like boys."
She arose to her feet, and he saw more clearly then how slight she was;
her form and face were much more childish in character than her speech,
and the face was looking at him with resentful eyes.
"I'm going back to camp."
"Now, I've offended you, haven't I?" he asked, in surprise. "Really, I did
not mean to. Won't you forgive me?"
She dug her heel in the sand and did not answer; but the fact that she
remained at all assured him she would relent. He was amused at her quick
show of temper. What a prospect for Dan!
"I scarcely know what I said to vex you," he began; but she flashed a
sullen look at him.
"You think I'm odd--and--and a nobody; just because I ain't like fine
young ladies you know somewheres--like Miss Margaret Haydon," and she dug
the sand away with vicious little kicks. "Nice ladies with kid slippers
on," she added, derisively, "the sort that always falls in love with the
pretty man, the hero. Huh! I've seen some men who were heroes--real
ones--and I never saw a pretty one yet."
As she said it, she looked very straight into the very handsome face of
Mr. Lyster.
"A young Tartar!" he decided, mentally, while he actually colored at the
directness of her gaze and her sweepingly contemptuous opinion of "pretty
men."
"I see I'd better vacate your premises since you appear unwilling to
forgive me even my unintentional faults," he decided, meekly. "I'm very
sorry, I'm sure, and hope you will bear no malice. Of course I--nobody
would want you to be different from what you are; so you must not think I
meant that. I had hoped you would let me buy that clay bust as a memento
of this morning, but I'm afraid to ask favors now. I can only hope that
you will speak to me again to-morrow. Until then, good-by."
She raised her eyes sullenly at first, but they dropped, ashamed, before
the kindness of his own. She felt coarse and clumsy, and wished she had
not been so quick to quarrel. And he was turning away! Maybe he would
never speak nicely to her again, and she loved to hear him speak.
Then her hand was thrust out to him, and in it was the little clay model.
"You can have it. I'll give it to you," she said, quite humbly. "It ain't
very pretty, but if you like it--"
Thus ended the first of many differences between Dan's ward and Dan's
friend.
When Daniel Overton himself came stalking down among the Indian children,
looking right and left from under his great slouch hat, he halted
suddenly, and with his lips closed somewhat grimly, stood there watching
the rather pretty picture before him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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