At the moment Joe was sitting before the fire in characteristic attitude, hands deep in his pockets, legs stretched out, the toes of his solid boots in the air.
For a moment he did not answer. It was as though he had not heard. Then he turned that slow, bull-like glare of his full on her.
"A'm to save him that he may enjoy you—that's it, is it?" he said. "A'm to work ma own ruin."
It was the first time he had openly declared himself. Now that it had come she felt, like many another woman in such case, a sudden instant revulsion. Her dreams blew away like mist at the discharge of cannon. She was left with a sense of shock as one who has fallen from a height. At the moment of impact she was ironing, and glad of it. Baring her teeth unconsciously she pressed hard down on the iron with a little hiss.
"You've no call to talk to me like that, Joe. It's not right."
Deliberately he rose and turned his back.
"A don't know much," he growled in his chest, "but A do know that then."
Her heart thumped against her ribs.
"I thart you were straight, Joe," she said.
He warmed his hands at the blaze; and she knew he was grinning, and the nature of the grin.