The girl jumped up from her seat, anger flaming in her eyes. Mrs. Goodwin made some sort of cooing noise. Mrs. Blakemore cried "Oh!" and fluttered.
"That's all I've got to say," said Milford. "I oughtn't to have said that much, and wouldn't if it hadn't come round as it did. And now I must ask you to let the subject drop."
Gunhild sat down without a word. But in her quietness of manner was a turbulent spirit choked into subjection. In all things it seemed that her modesty was a conscious immodesty held in restraint. The uncouth girl, with utterance harsh in rough words of men from the far north, had been remodeled by the English school. But the blood of the Viking was strong within her, as she sat there, striving to appear submissive; but Milford fancied that she would like to dash out Dorsey's brains with a war-club. He sat down beside her, and with a cool smile she said: "Made a remark about me. It takes me back to the potato-field. I must thank you. We are fellow workmen." She spoke in a low voice. He looked from one to another, as if afraid that they might hear her. "It makes no difference," she said.
"Yes, it does. It is none of their business. I am going to set claim to all that part of the past. You may share your pleasure with them, but your trouble belongs to me. I will mix it with mine."
"The color might be dark," she replied.
"But two dark colors may make a white hope."
She shook her head and looked about as if now she were afraid that some one might hear. But the other boarders were talking among themselves. Mrs. Goodwin, at the far end of the bench, was giving to Blakemore her idea of the future life; Mrs. Blakemore had run off, summoned by an alarming howl from the boy; Mrs. Stuvic, still a believer in spiritualism and a devotee of fortune-telling, stood near, sniffing in contempt.
"Nothing can keep us apart," said Milford. "I'm not a soft wooer; I don't know how to play the he dove; I don't know how to sing a lie made by some one else; I don't pretend to be a gentleman; I am out of the rut, and they may call me unnatural. But let me tell you that all hell can't keep us apart."
"Mr. Milford, you must not talk like that. I too am out of the rut, and they may call me unnatural, but I do not like to hear you talk that way."
"Yes, you do. You can't help yourself. If it's the devil that brought us together, then blessed be the name of the devil."