“I got it at Asheville,” she said. “I went with father when they was a show thar, 'n' the women stayed at the same tavern we was at, 'n' one of 'em tuk up with me 'n' I done somethin' for her—carried a letter or two,” breaking into the sly, triumphant laugh again, “'n' she giv' me the dress fur pay. What d'ye think of it? Is it becomin'?”
The suddenness of the change of manner with which she said these last words was indescribable. She stood upright, her head up, her hands fallen at her sides, her eyes cool and straight—her whole presence confronting him with the power of which she was conscious.
“Is it?” she repeated.
He was a gentleman from instinct and from training, having ordinarily quite a lofty repugnance for all profanity and brusqueness, and yet some how,—account for it as you will,—he had the next instant answered her with positive brutality.
“Yes,” he answered, “Damnably!”
When the words were spoken and he heard their sound fall upon the soft night air, he was as keenly disgusted as he would have been if he had heard them uttered by another man. It was not until afterward when he had had leisure to think the matter over that he comprehended vaguely the force which had moved him.
But his companion received them without discomfiture. Indeed, it really occurred to him at the moment that there was a possibility that she would have been less pleased with an expression more choice.
“I come down here to-night,” she said, “because I never git no chance to do nothin' up at the house. I'm not a-goin' to let them know. Never mind why, but ye mustn't tell 'em.”
He felt haughtily anxious to get back to his proper position.
“Why should I?” he said again. “It is no concern of mine.”