“The deuce she has; how do you know?”
“Why, any woman of spirit would.”
He pondered this.
“Oh, well, let her go if she wants to. She’s scarcely human at times. Well, if she insists upon leaving I’ll give her a year’s salary in advance. . . . Damnation. . . . Good morning, Maisie, dear. Please try to reason with—the sundry females about this house. . . . Tamea, I go to my office. Be a good girl.”
“You are my father and my mother,” she replied humbly. “I will kiss you farewell.” And she did it.
“This primitive young witch has been in this house less than twenty-four hours and already she has kissed that defenseless man twice in my presence. I have known Dan all my life—and I have kissed him but once,” Maisie thought.
The stab of resentment, of jealousy, perhaps, was more poignant this time; in addition Maisie was just a little bit peeved at the ease with which Tamea had achieved her victory.
Maisie had sufficient imagination to understand why Tamea, daughter of a thousand despots, with the instinct to rule complicated by the desire, must be excused for precipitating the clash with Mrs. Pippy. But what Maisie could also understand very clearly, since she too was a woman, was that Tamea, by the grace of her sex and her shameless effrontery in using every wile of that sex, was likely to become absolute master of Dan Pritchard’s establishment. The man was helpless before her. Maisie permitted a challenging gleam in the glance which she now bent upon Tamea.
Tamea intercepted that glance and interpreted it correctly. It was as if Maisie had heliographed to her: “Young lady, you’ve got a fight on your hands.” Without an instant’s hesitation Tamea’s smoky orbs acknowledged the message and flashed back the reply: “Very well. I accept the challenge.”
Then Maisie smiled, and Tamea, with hot resentment in her heart, smiled back.