So small and ignorant did the girl look, yet so determined and keen, that Farwell grew anxious. Evidently Nathaniel had borne too hard upon her, borne to the snapping point, and she had, in her wild fashion, caught the infection of the last going away—Jamsie Hornby's. It was laughable, but pathetic.
"What could you do?" Farwell leaned forward and gazed into the strange blue eyes fixed upon him.
"Dance. Have you ever seen me dance? Do you want to?" She was prepared to prove herself.
"Good Lord! no, no!"
"Oh! I can dance. If some one would play for me—play on—on a fiddle, I could dance all day and night. Wouldn't people pay for that?"
This was serious business. By some subtle suggestion Priscilla Glenn had introduced into the bare, cleanly room an atmosphere of danger, a curious sense of unreality and excitement.
"Yes—they do pay," Farwell said slowly; "but where in heaven's name did you get such ideas?"
The girl looked impishly saucy. She was making a sensation again and, while Anton Farwell was not affected as her parents had been, he was undoubtedly impressed.
"It's this way: You have to sell what you've got until you get something better. There isn't an earthly thing I can do but dance now; of course I can learn. Don't you remember the nice story about the old woman who went to market her eggs for to sell? Master Farwell, I'm like her, and my dancing is my—egg!"
She was laughing now, this unreasoning, unreasonable girl, and she was laughing more at Farwell's perplexity than at her own glibness. She must soon go, her time was growing short, but she was enjoying herself immensely.