She was looking up at him proudly.
"But," she said, "baby is his own child."
"Good God! of course it is," broke out Raven, in a fever of impatience. "Of course it's his child. You don't need to tell me that."
Then, incredibly, she smiled and two dimples appeared at the corners of her mouth and altered her face from a mask of tragic suffering to the sweetest playfulness.
"You mustn't say 'it,'" she reproved him. "You must say 'he.' Anybody'd know you ain't a family man."
Raven stood looking at her a moment, his own smile coming. Then he sat down in his chair. He wanted to tell her how game she was, and there seemed no way to manage it. But now he could ask her questions. Her friendliness, her amazing confidence, had opened the door.
"Exactly what do you mean?" he asked, yet cautiously, for even after her own avowals he might frighten her off the bough. "Does he drink?"
She looked at him reprovingly.
"No, indeed," she said. "He's a very religious man."
"The devil he is!" Raven found himself muttering, remembering the catamount yells and the axe. "Then what," he continued, with as complete an air as he could manage of taking it as all in the day's work, "what do you mean by his spells?"