How she laughed at me as I stood perplexed and scowling and fingering the fringe on my leggings, and how her laughter cut, with its undertone ringing with tears. What on earth had changed her to a woman like this, talking a language that dealt in phrases which one heard and marked and found meant nothing, with a sting in their very emptiness?
"Very well," said I, "you shall not have Dunmore for spite of a fool unworthy of you; and as for that, you shall not have the fool either!"
"I am not likely to get him," she said.
"You could have him for the wish!" I cried, jealously. "I'd like to see the man who would not crawl from here to Johnstown to kiss your silken shoe!"
"Would you?"
"It pleases you to mock me," I said; "but I'll tell you this: If I loved you as a sweetheart I'd do it! I'll have the world know it is honoured wherever you touch it with your foot!"
"Do you mean it?" she asked, looking at me strangely.
"Mean it! Have you ever doubted it?"
The colour in her face surged to her hair.
"You speak like a lover," she said, with a catch in her breath.