The softness and assumed penitence of the low wail with which she ended made Durgan laugh aloud. "Look here. Look me straight in the face!"
She could do that very well, raising her soft, doe-like eyes to his, then fringing them with her lashes as an accomplished beauty might. Durgan was so angry with her on Adam's account, that he forgot that his first object was to secure her silence.
"You've got a good husband and a good home. If you ar'n't good to Adam after this, I'll despise you. Do you understand?"
"Don't speak to me so sharp, marsa." There was already a little edge of malice in the velvet of her voice.
"Now, about these letters—if I catch you ever speaking of them again, I'll tell Adam you've lied to him, and why. I'll tell him all about you, and he'll never trust you again. Do you understand?"
"An' if I don't tell nothin' you ain't disposed on, Marse Neil, honey?"
"Then I'll be kind to you, and let Adam think you're better than you are."
But the negress, turning to her work in the hut, no longer moved about him with liquid eyes and joyful steps, as a happy spaniel does. Beneath her calmer demeanor he saw the shade of sullenness, and still heard the edge of malice in her voice.
"I have been a fool," thought he. "She would have managed better in my place." Then he dismissed her from his thoughts.