“And if you can dance a threesome reel, what good does it do ye?” asked Susan, looking askance at Michael, who had just been vaunting his proficiency. “Does it help you plough, reap, or even climb the rocks to take a raven’s nest? If I were a man, I’d be ashamed to give in to such softness.”
“If you were a man, you’d be glad to do anything which made the pretty girls stand round and admire.”
“As they do to you, eh! Ho, Michael, that would not be my way o’ being a man!”
“What would then?” asked he, after a pause, during which he had expected in vain that she would go on with her sentence. No answer.
“I should not like you as a man, Susy; you’d be too hard and headstrong.”
“Am I hard and headstrong?” asked she, with as indifferent a tone as she could assume, but which yet had a touch of pique in it. His quick ear detected the inflexion.
“No, Susy! You’re wilful at times, and that’s right enough. I don’t like a girl without spirit. There’s a mighty pretty girl comes to the dancing class; but she is all milk and water. Her eyes never flash like yours when you’re put out; why, I can see them flame across the kitchen like a cat’s in the dark. Now, if you were a man, I should feel queer before those looks of yours; as it is, I rather like them, because—”
“Because what?” asked she, looking up and perceiving that he had stolen close up to her.
“Because I can make all right in this way,” said he, kissing her suddenly.
“Can you?” said she, wrenching herself out of his grasp and panting, half with rage. “Take that, by way of proof that making right is none so easy.” And she boxed his ears pretty sharply. He went back to his seat discomfited and out of temper. She could no longer see to look, even if her face had not burnt and her eyes dazzled, but she did not choose to move her seat, so she still preserved her stooping attitude and pretended to go on sewing.