"... even as death might smile, Petting the plumes of some surprised soul,"
quoted the girl. Of loving and hating, they talked; of trying and failing—of the implacable urge under which men must strive in the face of certain defeat—of the probability that men are purposely born fools, since, if they were born wise they would refuse to strive; whereupon life and death would merge, and naught would prevail but a vast indifference. In fact, they were very deep, and affected to consider these grave matters seriously. They affected that they never habitually thought of lesser concerns. And they had the air of listening to each other as if they were weighing the words judicially, and were quite above any mere sensuous considerations of personality.
Once they emerged long enough to hear the hostess speaking, as it were of yesterday, of a day when the new "German cotillion" was introduced, to make a sensation in New York; of a time when the best ballrooms were heated with wood stoves and lighted with lamps; and of a later but apparently still remote time when the Assemblies were "really, quite the smartest function of the season."
In another pause, they caught the kernel of a story being told by Uncle Peter:
"The girl was a half-breed, but had a fair skin and the biggest shock of hair you ever saw—bright yellow hair. She was awful proud of her hair. So when her husband, Clem Dewler, went to this priest, Father McNally, and complained that she would run away from the shack and hang around the dance-halls down at this mining-camp, Father McNally made up his mind to learn her a lesson. Well, he goes down and finds her jest comin' out of Tim Healy's place with two other women. He rushes up to her, catches hold of this big shock of hair that was trailin' behind her, and before she knew what was comin' he whipped out a big pair of sharp, shiny shears, and made as if he was going to give her a hair-cut. At that she begins to scream, but the priest he wouldn't let go. 'I'll cut it off,' he says, 'close,' he says, 'if you don't swear on this crucifix to be a good squaw to Clem Dewler, and never set so much as one of your little feet in these places again.' She could feel the shears against her hair, and she was so scared she swore like he told her. And so she was that afraid of losin' her fine yellow hair afterward, knowin' Father McNally was a man that didn't make no idle threats, that she kept prim and proper—fur a half-breed."
"That poor creature had countless sisters," was Miss Milbrey's comment to Percival. And they fell together once more in deciding whether, after all, the brightest women ever cease to believe that men are influenced most by surface beauties. They fired each other's enthusiasm for expressing opinions, and they took the opinions very seriously. Yet of their meeting, to an observer, their talk would have seemed the part least worth recording.
Twice Percival caught Shepler's regard bent upon them. It amused him to think he detected signs of uneasiness back of the survey, cool, friendly, and guarded as it was on the surface.
At parting, later, Percival spoke for the first time to Miss Milbrey of her engagement.
"You must know that I wish you all the happiness you hope for yourself; and if I were as lucky in love as Mr. Shepler has been, I surely would never dare to gamble in anything else—you know the saying."
"And you, Mr. Bines. I've been hearing so much of your marriage. I hope the rumour I heard to-day is true, that your engagement has been announced."