“I read the evidence, and, frankly, it looked like stupidity.”
“I haven’t been called stupid usually, have I?”
“No. I’ve heard you called many things, but never that.”
Every inch of his five-feet-five was pluck. He could take her shots broadside, and laugh while he winced. “You’ve heard me called a good many things not complimentary, I suppose, for I know I’m not much to look at, and I’ve an edge to my tongue sometimes. What is the worst thing you ever said of me?” he added a little bitterly.
“What I say to you now—though, by the way, I’ve never said it before—that your self-confidence is appalling. Don’t you know that I’m very popular, that they say I’m clever, and that I’m a tall, good-looking girl?”
She looked down at him, and said it with such a delightful naivete, through which a tone of raillery ran, that it did not sound as it may read. She knew her full value, but no one had ever accused her of vanity—she was simply the most charming, outspoken girl in the biggest city of Australia.
“Yes, I know all that,” he replied with an honest laugh. “When you were a little child,—according to your mother, and were told you were not good, you said: ‘No, I’m not good—I’m only beautiful.’”
Dibbs had a ready tongue, and nothing else he said at the moment could have had so good an effect. She laughed softly and merrily. “You have awkward little corners in your talk at times. I wonder they didn’t reduce you at the court-martial. You were rather keen with your words once or twice there.”
A faint flush ran over Dibbs’s face, but he smiled through it, and didn’t give away an inch of self-possession. “If the board had been women, I’d have been reduced right enough—women don’t go by evidence, but by their feelings; they don’t know what justice really is, though by nature they’ve some undisciplined generosity.”
“There again you are foolish. I’m a woman. Now why do you say such things to me, especially when—when you are aspiring! Properly, I ought to punish you. But why did you say those sharp things at your trial? They probably told against you.”