He could have bitten his tongue off the next instant, for the man gave him a sharp, not to say suspicious, look.
“Yes. The young lady’s yoah wife, I reckon, suh. Her and you-all come togethah, didn’t yo’?”
“Yes—no—that is—” stammered Fessenden.
The shopkeeper stopped in the act of wrapping the assortment of haberdashery and razors Fessenden had picked out.
“It ain’t my way to quawl with good money,” he said, “but I’m a professin’ Baptist, and I’m obliged to say if yo’ two folks have come sailin’ round these parts ’ithout bein’ lawfully married—well”—he sighed regretfully—“then, suh, you-all can’t buy nothin’ in my stoah.”
But by this time Fessenden had recovered his wits. “No, no, man,” he said. “You don’t understand. She’s my daughter.”
“Oh, yoah daughtah? Then it’s all right, of co’se. Yes, suh, I can see now she does favah you-all a heap.” Although desirous of being convinced, his suspicions still lingered. “But you-all are a pretty young-lookin’ fathah, that’s a fact, suh.”
“Forty isn’t very young,” returned Fessenden mendaciously. “Which way did you say she went?”
“Why, she met some of yoah friends from the big yacht. They was in aftah theyah mail. They-all went out togethah. Yoah friends beat you-all consid’abul, didn’t they?”
His friends on the big yacht? What was the fellow talking about? Fessenden repressed a half-uttered question. No need to reawaken the man’s slumbering suspicions as to the character of himself and Betty! He settled his bill, and left the “Bazaar,” bundle in hand.