"Mr. Carder, this is the last time this must happen. I refuse to sit down and make a waitress of your old mother. If you insist on showing her no consideration, I shall go away from here at once."
Her companion laughed, quietly, but with genuine amusement and admiration.
"By ginger," he said, "when you're mad, you're the handsomest thing above ground. Go away! That's a good one. Don't I tell you, you can do anything with me?" The speaker paused to drink his coffee noisily, keeping his eyes on the exquisite, stiff little mouth opposite him. "I know I ain't any dandy to look at. I've been too busy rollin' up the money that's goin' to make you go on velvet the rest o' your days: you're welcome to change all that, too. Yes, indeed. Never fear. When we do over the house we're goin' to do over yours truly, too. I'll do exactly as you say and you can turn me out a fashion plate that'll be hard to beat."
"I'm not interested in turning you out a fashion plate," returned Geraldine coldly. "I'm interested in making the lot of your mother easier, that is all."
Rufus regarded her thoughtfully and nodded. It penetrated his brain that he had been going too fast with this disdainful beauty. He rather admired her for her disdain; it added zest to the certainty of her capitulation.
"Have it your own way, little girl," he said leniently. "I know you're tired, still. You're not eatin'. Eat a good supper and to-night take another long sleep and to-morrow everything will look different."
Geraldine still regarded him with an unfaltering gaze. "We are strangers," she said. "I wish you not to call me 'little girl!'"
Rufus smiled at her admiringly. "It's hard for me to be formal with Dick Melody's girl," he said. "What shall I call you? My lady? That's all right, that's what you are. My lady. Another cup o' coffee please, my lady. It tastes extra good from your fair hands. We'll do away with this rocky tea-set, too. You're goin' to have eggshell China if you want it; and of course you do want it, you little princess."
His extreme air of proprietorship had several times during this interview convinced Geraldine that her host had been drinking. In spite of his odious frank admiration and the glimpses that he gave of some disquieting power, Geraldine scorned him too much to be afraid of him, and while she doubted increasingly that it would be possible for her to remain here, she determined to see what the morning would bring forth. The man's passion for acquisition, evidenced by his showmanship of his accumulations, might again absorb him after the first flush of her novelty wore off. She would enter into the work of the house, she would never again sit tête-à-tête with him, and he should find it impossible to see her alone. His mother had warned her that he was terrible when he was angry, and Geraldine suspected that the mother always felt the brunt of his wrath. She must be careful, therefore, not to make the lot of that mother harder while endeavoring to ease it.
As soon as she could, Geraldine escaped to the kitchen where she found Mrs. Carder at her wet sink.