"And you will stand by Radcliffe? You won't desert him?" he asked, as she was about to pass into the house.
"I'll show you that, at least, I'm not a quitter, even if I am a hopeless proposition, as you say."
A faint shadow of a smile flitted across his face as, with head held proudly erect, she turned and left him.
"No, you're not a quitter," he muttered to himself, "but—neither am I!"
The determined set of his jaw would have rekindled that inner rebellious fire in Claire, if she had seen it. But she was seeing nothing just at that moment, save Martha, who, to her amazement, stood ready to receive her in the inner hall.
"Ain't it just grand?" inquired Mrs. Slawson. "They told me yesterday, 'all things bein' equal,' they'd maybe leave us back soon, but I didn't put no stock in it, knowin' they never is equal. So I just held me tongue an' waited, an' this mornin', like a bolster outer a blue sky, come the word that at noon we could go. Believe me, I didn't wait for no old shoes or rice to be threw after me. I got into their old amberlance-carriage, as happy as a blushin' bride bein' led to the halter, an' Francie an' me come away reji'cin'. Say, but what ails you? You look sorter—sorter like a—strained relation or somethin'. What you been doin' to yourself to get so white an' holler-eyed? What kep' you so late?"
"I had a tussle with Radcliffe."
"Who won out?"
"I did, but it took me all day."
"Never mind. It'd been cheap at the price, if it had 'a' took you all week. How come the madam to give you a free hand?"