"Now, look here!" Confronting her, arms akimbo, Gelly let loose the coarsely expressed, though not wholly unjustifiable, anger that in deference to Maclane and Scarlett she had been trying to restrain. "You better just dry up on that good-doin' proposition, else it ull be the worse fer yer round these diggin's! I know yer kind. I was in a Home oncet, and they came and sang to us, sometimes in fine duds ter show thet they regarded us like as their equals, which is lies! And sometimes dressed, oh my! so goody-goody plain, ter show thet rich folk don't reely care fer silk and sealskin—which is lies! And then they sent me to a convent, and the Sisters, they meant all right, but they cheated the doctor about the medicines they put in his prescriptions to save money fer the Church, and kidded to the saints about their souls. Souls! Shucks! Thar was a missioner oncet who thought she'd got a holt of me all right, all right. She were a-prospectin' ter launder my soul and show it tied up with baby-blue ribbons and sashayed with sanctity as a prize sample to the Lord. Want ter know what I done ter her? Not a thing, you betcherlife! Only smashed her face with a sody-water bottle! Soft drinks, cos thet kind puts most heft in the bottle and least ter the booze. See? Now you better get busy and earn your own salt, virtuous ef you're so plumb struck on virtue, and ef not, anyway——"
A firm hand on her shoulder cut her short, as, wheeling her right-about-face, Scarlett sternly bade her, "Come!" And, like a little cowering dog about to be whipped for a victory in which, while half ashamed of it, it wholly glories, Gelly meekly followed him.
The color which the girl's attack had driven from Evelyn's face came flooding back as she turned reproachfully upon Maclane: "And you never said a word to stop her!"
"Ah," replied the minister, "I have learned that I always gain so much from listening to the other fellow's point of view."
"But surely"—for Miss Durant was not a little proud of her capacity for "emanating gracious influences," as the dilettanti of her kind were apt to phrase it—"surely you believe in missionary work; in doing good?"
Before replying, Maclane stooped forward and drew back a spray of vine that was spreading itself obtrusively over a little pink-faced daisy making a sturdy effort to look up to the god of light. "The best we can do is to try to give created things their chance. And in the end, my dear," he patted Evelyn's hand kindly, "it's the missionaries, the good-doers, to whom the good is done."
"Gelly," Scarlett meanwhile was admonishing his stubborn charge, "in all this lowdown district there isn't a man so mean he could be hired to tell that poor girl yonder the truth about her father till we've made her feel at home among us and somehow fitted her to bear it. Now, Gelly, are you, a girl that has known trouble, going to be meaner than the men?"
Gelly looked at him. "Better hev yer uniform let out fer the wings ter sprout," she advised him, with unfeigned homage, if with mocking tongue. "As fer thet thar stuck-up piece——" A rude grimace completed her estimate of Evelyn, but in the midst of it she paused suddenly, her ill-bred thumb dropping from her saucy nose. "I'm jiggered ef I don't b'lieve yer gone on her!"
"That's neither here nor there," answered the young soldier. "I'll lock up your tongue in jail if it disturbs the peace, but I'd so much sooner put you on your honor, Gelly."
"Till next time," promised Gelly, "yer kin let it go at that!" Then, as she went down the road, she burst into loud sobbing: "And I cud be decent ef some decent woman ud believe in me!"