"Nice kind of lady!" she said.
The obvious retort slipped thoughtlessly off his tongue. "I like that! What are you doing?"
Her eyes filled with tears, and the scissors faltered. "Well, I wouldn't do it for—I—I wouldn't do it all the time," she murmured deeply hurt.
He twisted his head at the imminent risk of impaling an eye on the scissors. The tears astonished him. Everything about her astonished him. In no respect did she coincide with his experience of "native" girls. He was vain enough for a good-looking young man of twenty-five, but he did not suspect that to a lonely and imaginative girl his coming down the river might have had all the effect of the advent of the yellow-haired prince in a fairy-tale. Jack was not imaginative.
He reached for her free hand. "Say, I'm sorry," he said clumsily. "It was only a joke! It's mighty decent of you to do it for me."
She snatched her hand away, but smiled at him briefly and dazzlingly. She was glad to be hurt if he would let that tone come into his mocking voice.
"I was just silly," she said shortly.
The hair-cutting went on.
"What do you read?" asked Jack curiously.
"We get newspapers and magazines three times a year by the steamboat," she said. "And I have a few books. I like 'Lalla Rookh' and 'Marmion' best."