She brung her hands t’gether. “Why not?” she answers. “It’ll give me the chanst I want. If I’m a success, you could come on too, Alec. Then we’d marry, and you could go along with me as my manager.”
I looked at her. I was hurt–hurt plumb t’ the quick, and a little mad, too. “I see myself!” I says. “Travel along with you’ poodle. Huh! And you wearin’ circus clothes like that Miss Marvellous Murray, and lettin’ some feller kiss you in the play. Macie,”–and I meant what I said–“you can just put the hull thing right to one side. I–won’t–have–it!”
She set her lips tight, and her face got a deep red.
“So this is the way you keep you’ word!” she says. “A minute ago, you said you wasn’t goin’ t’ try to run me no more. Wal,–you wasn’t in earnest. I can see that. ’Cause here’s the same thing over again.”
The door into the ole man’s bedroom opened then, and he come walkin’ out. “You two make a thunderin’ lot of noise,” he begun. “What in the dickens is the matter?”
Mace turned to him, face still a-blazin’. “Alec’s allus tryin’ t’ run me,” she answers, “and I’m gittin’ plumb tired of it.”
Sewell’s mouth come open. “Run you,” he says. “Wal, some while back he done all the runnin’ he’s ever a-goin’ t’ do in this house. And he don’t do no more of it. By what right is he a-interferin’ now?”
I got to my feet. “This right, boss:” I says, “I love Macie.”
He begun to kinda swell–gradual. And if a look could ’a’ kilt me, I’d ’a’ keeled over that second.
“You–love–Macie!” he says slow. “Wal , I’ll be darned if you haven’t got cheek!”