“Are you,” I said, “when you chastise me—me with that meretricious little skipjack?”
“But, how do you know he is meretricious? You have seen no more of him than I have.”
“Exactly. My opinion of him has precisely the value of yours; and they are both worth nothing.”
She came and put her hand upon my arm, and looked up in my face.
“I did not mean to hurt you, Felix.”
“With that?” I answered. “My mail is proof against better than pea-shooters, Fifine.”
“You are not offended?”
“God bless you, no, child. I was as much in jest as you were.”
“Yes,” she said, and turned away.
But, as we walked down the hill together, after a long silence she suddenly broke upon me again:—