As the negro vanished, she turned on me with that same, queenly lift of her head.
"Well, sir, will you stay?"
"Why should I stay?" I managed at last to ask.
She looked me straight in the eye, "You're not of their kind," she replied. "Father himself thinks that."
For the moment I was confused, and thought only of Arnold and Gideon North.
"You and he are wrong," I stiffly responded. "I am their kind, and I am proud to be their kind."
"Oh," she said, "oh! I beg your pardon."
A hurt look appeared in her eyes and she stepped back and turned away.
All at once I remembered that she had never seen Arnold and Gideon North; that she had not meant them at all; that she had meant Gleazen and Matterson. It was at the tip of my tongue to cry out to her, to call her back, to tell her the whole truth about our party on board the brig Adventure. I had drawn the very breath to speak, when Gideon North's voice summoned me from the darkness:
"Joe, Joe Woods! Where are you?"