"Billy's got a fine flow of language," Birkdale put in amusedly. "For a youngster, I don't think I ever heard it equalled." Birkdale was about to urge Billy to renewed effort, when something the boy was wedging in among his evil words caught his attention.
"I was just a-telling him—" more lurid expressions—"'bout Joyce and Mr. Gaston. It didn't seem like nothing; just them two being beaux like all girls and fellers, but Jude he did me dirt, he did!" Billy stopped rubbing his eyes.
He was interested, himself, in the effect his words now had. For a moment he feared all the men were going to rise up against him as Jude had done. A silence fell upon the group. Filmer gave one keen glance at the imp on the doorstep, and then refilled his pipe and leaned back in his wooden chair.
Tom Smith, the ticket agent of the Station, looked as if some one had dashed water in his face, so startled was he; and Jared Birkdale simply stared open-mouthed at the spy in their midst. Then Tate, the proprietor, with the tact for which he was noted, went to the bar and began filling glasses.
St. Angé had received a shock; but St. Angé took its shocks in a peculiar way. It reserved its opinion until it had drunk on them.
Soon after the revelation Birkdale went home without a word having been spoken by any one on the subject so suddenly thrust upon their notice.
Jared had gone home to assure himself that Joyce had actually grown up to the extent of making Billy Falstar's remarks possible.
The afternoon's contemplation had caused him some astonishment.
Joyce was grown up! Then he had slept on the knowledge, and dreamed of other days—a life apart, and beyond St. Angé.
St. Angé was a young place; it had no antiquity; almost all who lived there had had a setting in some other time and environment.