"Wa-al—ef they all wuz ter make game o' hit, an' me, till they draps dead, every one, I'd think 'twar smart an' fine an' a good turn, kase that thar showman tole me so, an' I b'lieve him, every word."
He looked at her intently for a moment, as if he was minded to wring her neck, and canvassed within himself how to most effectively lay hold. Then he flung back his head with his mouth open in the dumb show of laughing extravagantly, the youthful demonstration seeming a great lapse from the personality of the old man, causing her to step back with a gesture of repellent distrust. She recognised him perfectly, yet she was constrained to look at him as at something uncouth, uncanny, strange.
"Wa-al, that's one o' the dernedest enjyments the town air gittin' out'n the street fair—the way that man makes you uns puffawm, 'lowin' ye air doin' so fine, an' till terday they didn't hev the heart ter jine in makin' game o' you uns."
Again that stricken look on her face—the facts so bore out the semblance of the interpretation his malignity had devised. And of herself she had no art to judge. It seemed indeed to her a slight thing to so arouse enthusiasm, ardour—the humble sporting beneath the orchard tree. But even against her own conviction she could not doubt Lloyd.
"He hev gin his word on it, an' it air a true word. An' I b'lieve him."
Binley was raging inwardly, but he controlled the surging tempest for a time. He could hardly have mastered his emotions in a good cause, but enmity prevailed mightily within him. And he loved the girl in his way, and jealousy consumed him like a fire.
"When a gal wants ter be fooled, it's powerful easy ter make a lie seem like the truth," he moralised. "Look hyar, Clotildy; every woman that man hires, but you uns, air dressed up finer than a fiddle, the flying lady, an' the fat lady, an' all. But ye dances in yer shabby old everyday clothes! Lord, child, they talked all over town an' the cove bout'n it."
Again the cogent reasoning, the recurrent shock to her faith! And this she knew was the fact, for Lloyd himself had come to the camp and detailed the gossip; had expressed the doubt he had, lest his ardour for the fitness of the rustic turn had rendered her liable to criticism.
Still she believed in Lloyd against the confirmation of her own knowledge. "I know that man ain't a liar," she averred. "He's good an' he's true. He wouldn't fool a—a—frawg! He hev gin his word, an' I b'lieves him. Ef 'tain't a good stunt it's kase he dunno what a good stunt air."
There was a momentary silence of tremendous import to him. Both felt that the forces of the crisis were accumulated to an outburst.