"Ye be powerful sparin' o' speech ter-day," he remarked.
Her eyes did not move from the distant landscape. "Folks ez hev got nuthin' ter say would do well ter say it."
He flushed. "Ye hed mo' ter say ter the stranger-man."
"Don't see him so powerful frequent. When a thing is sca'ce, it's apt ter be ch'ice," she retorted.
She experienced a certain satisfaction in her acridity. For his sake, lest suspicion befall him, she had sought to inaugurate an investigation—nay, a persecution—of this man, and he a stranger; and but that circumstance was kind to him, her effort might have resulted cruelly. And now that she had done so much for Con Hite, it was her pleasure to take it out on him, as the phrase goes. All unaware of this curious mental attitude, he winced under her satire.
"Waal, I kin make myself sca'ce, too," he said, an impulse of pride surging in his heart.
"It mought be better fur ye," she replied indifferently.
His momentary independence left him suddenly.
"Narcissa," he said reproachfully, "ye didn't always talk this way ter me."
"That ain't news ter me. Ben 'lows ez I talk six ways fur Sunday."