A chuckle sounded from Archdale’s office.
Immediately the light of victory, carefully veiled, but bright, shone in Porgy’s eyes. He reached behind him and tweaked the goat by the ear. The dejected animal mistook the signal, and started forward.
“No, no, bubber,” whispered Porgy. “Ain’t yuh hear de Boss laugh? When nigger mek de buckra laugh, den he know he done won. Dis wey we goin’ spen’ we libe. You watch.”
§
The change in Porgy, which Peter had been the first to notice, was now apparent to all who knew him. The defensive barrier of reserve that he had built about his life was down. The long hours when he used to sit fixed and tense, with the look of introspection upon his face, were gone. Even the most skeptical of the women were beginning to admit that Bess was making him a good mate. Not that they mingled freely with the other residents of the court. On the contrary, they seemed strangely sufficient unto themselves in the midst of the intensely gregarious life that was going on about them. Porgy’s earnings were adequate to their modest needs, and Bess was always up and out with the first of the women, and among them all there was none who could bargain more shrewdly with the fishermen and hucksters who sold their wares on the wharf.
Like Porgy, Bess had undergone a subtle change that became more evident from day to day. Her gaunt figure had rounded out, bringing back a look of youthful comeliness, and her face was losing its hunted expression. The air of pride that had always shown in her bearing, which had amounted almost to disdain, that had so infuriated the virtuous during her evil days, was heightened, and, in her bettered condition forced a resentful respect from her feminine traducers.
One morning while she was doing her marketing on the wharf, one of the river men who had known her in the past, hailed her too familiarly. He was at that moment stepping from the top round of a ladder on to the wharf.
“How ’bout ternight?” he asked with a leer.
She was holding a string of whiting in her left hand, and was hanging upon the final penny of a bargain with the fishman. She half turned, and delivered a resounding slap with her right hand. The man staggered backward, hung for a moment, then vanished. There was a tremendous splash from the shallow water.
“Twenty cent fuh dis string, an’ not one cent mo’,” Bess continued coolly to the fishman.