When she had brought her meal to a close with a cup of tea, she found Alce waiting for her in the hotel entrance.
"I never thought you'd come to market, Joanna."
"And why not, pray?"
The correct answer was—"Because you don't know enough about beasts," but Alce had the sense to find a substitute.
"Because it ain't safe or seemly for a woman to come alone and deal with men."
"And why not, again? Are all you men going to swindle me if you get the chance?"
Joanna's laugh always had a disintegrating effect on Alce, with its loud warm tones and its revelation of her pretty teeth—which were so white and even, except the small pointed canines. When she laughed she opened her mouth wide and threw back her head on her short white neck. Alce gropingly put out a hairy hand towards her, which was his nearest approach to a caress. Joanna flicked it away.
"Now a-done do, Arthur Alce"—dropping in her merriment into the lower idiom of the Marsh—"a-done do with your croaking and your stroking both. Let me go my own ways, for I know 'em better than you can."
"But these chaps—I don't like it—maybe, seeing you like this amongst them, they'll get bold with you."
"Not they! How can you mention such a thing? There was Mr. Cobb and Mr. Godfrey at dinner, talking to me as respectful as churchwardens, all about liver fluke and then by way of rot in the oats, passing on natural and civil to the Isle of Wight disease in potatoes—if you see anything bold in that ... well then you're an old woman as sure as I ain't."