"What I should do?"
"If you had a lot of money, of course you would give it all away at once, for fear you might be cut off--segregated--rocky island--and so forth?"
To her surprise, he laughed in quite a natural way. "Uncle Armistead, who's usually right, says I'd hang on to every cent I could get, and turn away sorrowful.... Probably the only reason I talk this way is I haven't got any.... That is--except just a--a little income I have, to live on...."
No doubt he said this hypocritically, self-righteous beneath his meekness, but Cally was prompt to pounce on it as a damning confession. She flashed a brilliant smile upon him, saying, "Ah, yes!--it's so much easier to preach than to practice, isn't it?"
And quite pleased with that, she proceeded to that despoiling of him she had had in mind from the beginning:
"Before I go, I started to tell you just now, when you interrupted me, that I was in rather a hurry yesterday, and didn't have time to--to say to you what I meant to say, to answer your request--"
"Oh!" said he, rather long drawn-out; and she saw his smile fade. "Yes?"
"I meant to say to you," she went on, with the same "great lady" graciousness, "that I shall of course speak to my father about the girl you say was unjustly dismissed. It's a matter, naturally, with which you have nothing to do. But if an injustice has been done by one of his subordinates, my father would naturally wish to know of it, so that he may set it right."
The little speech came off smoothly enough, having been prepared (on the chance) last night. For the moment its effect seemed most gratifying. The young man turned away from her, plainly discomfited. There was a small callosity on the pilaster adjacent to his hand, and he scratched at it intently with a long forefinger. Standing so, he murmured, in the way he had of seeming to be talking to himself:
"I knew you would ... I knew!"