He stood on the hearth, facing her, with his back to the glowing logs, looking down upon her delicate features. She raised her eyes to his, speaking in a soft voice, with a faint smile flickering about her mouth. Quinney had fallen in love with her dimples. He thought he could see the ghost of one in the cheek slightly turned from the fire. His attitude, erect and sturdy, her attitude, the firelight, the lateness of the hour—these recalled insistently the sweet past, when Mrs. Biddlecombe used to leave the lovers to talk over the present and the future. Susan remembered, with an odd little pang at her heart, how satisfied she had been with that present, although Joe insisted upon forecasting their future. And his predictions, those ambitions which she had regarded as vaulting high above human probability, had come to pass. He was famous and rich!
"Joe dear!"
"What is it?"
"You became engaged to me, didn't you, against your father's wish, and unbeknown to mother? Yes, you did."
"And what of it?"
"I never told mother that day you kissed me for the first time behind our parlour door."
"Now, Susie, what are you gettin' at? Circumstances alter cases. My father made a white nigger o' me. But, by Gum! I wasn't disobedient."
"You were, and you know it."
"What do you mean?"
"You took up with me against his wish."