"As I said before, you are dreaming," responded the stranger, in a restrained fury. "I never was so put upon in my life. I never saw you before."
Bidiane drew herself up like an inspired prophetess. "Beware, sir, of the wrath of God. You lied before,—you are lying now."
The man fell into such a repressed rage that Mirabelle Marie, who was the only unembarrassed spectator, inasmuch as she was weak in racial loves and hatreds, felt called upon to decide the case. The gentleman, she saw, was the story-teller. Bidiane, who had not been particularly truthful as a child, had yet never told her a falsehood since her return from France.
"I'm awful sorry, sir, but you've gut to go. I brought up this leetle girl, an' her mother's dead."
The gentleman rose,—a gentleman no longer, but a plain, common, very ugly-tempered man. These Acadiens were actually turning him, an Englishman, out of the inn. And he had thought the whole people so meek, so spiritless. He was doing them such an honor to personally canvass them for votes for the approaching election. His astonishment almost overmastered his rage, and in a choking voice he said to Mirabelle Marie, "Your house will suffer for this,—you will regret it to the end of your life."
"I know some business," exclaimed Claudine, in sudden and irrepressible zeal. "I know that you wish to make laws, but will our men send you when they know what you say?"
He snatched his hat from the seat behind him. His election was threatened. Unless he chained these women's tongues, what he had said would run up and down the Bay like wildfire,—and yet a word now would stop it. Should he apologize? A devil rose in his heart. He would not.
"Do your worst," he said, in a low, sneering voice. "You are a pack of liars yourselves," and while Bidiane and Claudine stiffened themselves with rage, and Mirabelle Marie contemptuously muttered, "Get out, ole beast," he cast a final malevolent glance on them, and left the house.
For a time the three remained speechless; then Bidiane sank into her chair, pushed back her half-eaten supper, propped her red head on her hand, and burst into passionate weeping.