She looked at me coolly. "That is better," she said. "If your deeds were of a piece with your words you would be no man's slave. His least of all, Mr. Price!"
"You talk finely," I said, my passion cooling, as I began to read a covert meaning in her tone and words, and that she would be at something. "It comes well from you, who do his errands day and night!"
"Or find someone to do them," she answered with derision.
"Well, after this you will have to find someone else," I cried, warming again.
"Ah, if you would keep your word!" she cried in a different tone, clapping her hands softly, and peering at me. "If you would keep your word."
Seeing more clearly than ever that she would be at something, and wishing to know what it was, "Try me," I said. "What do you mean?"
"It is plain," she answered, "what I mean. Carry no more messages! Be sneak and spy no longer! Cease to put your head in a noose to serve rogues' ends! Have done, man, with cringing and fawning, and trembling at big words. Break off with these villains who hold you, put a hundred miles between you and them, and be yourself! Be a man!"
"Why, do you mean your uncle?" I cried, vastly surprised.
"Why not?" she said.
"But--if you feel that way, why do his bidding yourself?" I answered, doubting all this might be a trap of that cunning devil's. "If I sneak and spy, who spies on me, miss?"