The old woman leaned suddenly over, and drew the red, ridiculous head to her shoulder with a gasp of affection, and her eyes were full of tears.
“Cassy,” she exclaimed, “Cassy, you make me cry.” Then she turned and hurried from the room.
Three hours later the problem was solved in the big sitting-room where Cassy had first been received with her boy. Aunt Kate sat with her feet on a hassock, rocking gently and watching and listening. Black Andy was behind the great stove with his chair tilted back, carving the bowl of a pipe; the old man sat rigid by the table, looking straight before him and smacking his lips now and then as he was won’t to do at meeting; while Cassy, with her chin in her hands and elbows on her knees, gazed into the fire and waited for the storm to break.
Her little flashes of humour at dinner had not brightened things, and she had had an insane desire to turn cart-wheels round the room, so implacable and highly strained was the attitude of the master of the house, so unctuous was the grace and the thanksgiving before and after the meal. Abel Baragar had stored up his anger and his righteous antipathy for years, and this was the first chance he had had of visiting his displeasure on the woman who had “ruined” George, and who had now come to get “rights,” which he was determined she should not have. He had steeled himself against seeing any good in her whatever. Self-will, self-pride, and self-righteousness were big in him, and so the supper had ended in silence, and with a little attack of coughing on the part of Cassy, which made her angry at herself. Then the boy had been put to bed, and she had come back to await the expected outburst. She could feel it in the air, and while her blood tingled in a desire to fight this tyrant to the bitter end, she thought of her boy and his future, and she calmed the tumult in her veins.
She did not have to wait very long. The querulous voice of the old man broke the silence.
“When be you goin’ back East? What time did you fix for goin’?” he asked.
She raised her head and looked at him squarely. “I didn’t fix any time for going East again,” she replied. “I came out West this time to stay.”
“I thought you was on the stage,” was the rejoinder.
“I’ve left the stage. My voice went when I got a bad cold again, and I couldn’t stand the draughts of the theatre, and so I couldn’t dance, either. I’m finished with the stage. I’ve come out here for good and all.
“Where did you think of livin’ out here?”