This large truth did not seem to impress Mr. Hamlin. “Why did you leave Santa Clara?” he said abruptly, in his previous critical tone.
“Because of the folks there. They were standoffish and ugly. You see, Josh”—
“Who?”
“Josh Rylands!—HIM! He told everybody who I was, even those who had never seen me in the bills,—how good I was to marry him, how he had faith in me and wasn't ashamed,—until they didn't believe we were married at all. So they looked another way when they met us, and didn't call. And all the while I was glad they didn't, but he wouldn't believe it, and allowed I was pining on account of it.”
“And were you?”
“I swear to God, Jack, I'd have been content, and more, to have been just there with him, seein' nobody, letting every one believe I was dead and gone, but he said it was wrong, and weak! Maybe it was,” she added, with a shy, interrogating look at Jack, of which, however, he took no notice. “Then when he found they wouldn't call, what do you think he did?”
“Beat you, perhaps,” suggested Jack cheerfully.
“He never did a thing to me that wasn't straight out, square, and kind,” she said, half indignantly, half hopelessly. “He thought if HIS kind of people wouldn't see me, I might like to see my own sort. So without saying anything to me, he brought down, of all things! Tinkie Clifford, she that used to dance in the cheap variety shows at 'Frisco, and her particular friend, Captain Sykes. It would have just killed you, Jack,” she said, with a sudden hysteric burst of laughter, “to have seen Josh, in his square, straight-out way, trying to be civil and help things along. But,” she went on, as suddenly relapsing into her former attitude of worried appeal, “I couldn't stand it, and when she got to talking free and easy before Josh, and Captain Sykes to guzzling champagne, she and me had a row. She allowed I was putting on airs, and I made her walk, in spite of Josh.”
“And Josh seemed to like it,” said Hamlin carelessly. “Has he seen her since?”
“No; I reckon he's cured of asking that kind of company for me. And then we came here. But I persuaded him not to begin by going round telling people who I was,—as he did the last time,—but to leave it to folks to find out if they wanted to, and he gave in. Then he let me fix up this house and furnish it my own way, and I did!”