“No, the girl.”
“Truly, yes. And a very pleasant dream too. Almost as good as this bone.”
“Oh! you unsentimental, unsympathetic monster. Does not the sight of a pretty young creature like that remind you of home, and all the sweet refining influences shed around it by woman?”
“I cannot say that it does—hand me another; no, not a little thing like that, a big one full of marrow, so—. You see, old boy, a band of beads round the head, a sky-blue cloth bodice, a skirt of green flannel reaching only to the knees, cloth leggings ornamented with porcupine quills and moccasined feet, do not naturally suggest my respected mother or sisters.”
For the first time in our acquaintance I felt somewhat disgusted with my friend’s levity, and made no rejoinder. He looked at me quickly, with slightly raised eyebrows, and gave a little laugh.
With a strong effort I crushed down my feelings, and said in a tone of forced gaiety:—
“Well, well, things strike people in strangely different lights. I thought not of the girl’s costume but her countenance.”
“Come, then, Max,” returned my friend, with that considerate good nature which attracted men so powerfully to him, “I admit that the girl’s face might well suggest the thought of dearer faces in distant lands—and especially her eyes, so different from the piercing black orbs of Indian squaws. Did you note the—the softness, I was going to say truthfulness, of her strangely blue eyes?”
Did I note them! The question seemed to me so ridiculous that I laughed, by way of reply.
I observed that Lumley cast on me for the second time a sharp inquiring glance, then he said:—