"It couldn't be," she replied in that same inflectionless voice.
It was her voice that cut so sharply. I reflected that it was only in the very old that we could bear that look of dead desire, that absence of all seeking, that was settling over her face.
"But you'll try," insisted Jim. "You won't say no now?"
With one reddened hand she smoothed the surface of her dress. "I'll try," she promised faintly.
Dinner over, prompted perhaps by a desire to look the old place over by myself, perhaps half inclined to pay a visit to Con, I left Jim in the library to his own devices, and stepped out alone along the road. The air was clear now, and the sleet had frozen to a thin crystal layer, a presage of winter, which glistened under the clear stars and sent them shivering up at me again. As I neared the mill house, I could hear voices through its scanty boarding, and decided, for the moment, to go on, following the bed of the creek, when an intonation, oddly familiar, brought me up like the crack of a whip. It is strange the power that sounds have to transport us, and again I saw a withered woman with straw-colored hair and a small, oblong bundle in a patch-work quilt. But, as I drew nearer, my thoughts were all for Lisbeth.
"Have my girl in town with that young puppy!" Old Con was rasping at her. "I know these artist-fellows, I tell you and—"
He ripped out an oath that took me bounding up the steps. My hand on the front door knob, however, I paused, catching sight of Lisbeth through the window. She was standing with her back towards the inner door her moth-like dress blending oddly with the pallor of her cheeks, the smudgy glow of the lamp light laying little warm patches on her hair. But it was her eyes, wide and dark, that stopped me. There was pain in them, and purport, a certain fierce intention, that made me wonder if I could not serve her better where I was. And, as I waited, her voice seeped thinly through the boarding.
"I don't believe it."—Her voice came quietly, almost without intonation. "Tom Breighton wouldn't be his friend then.—They're both fine and straight—and—"
"They are, are they?" he jeered. "Ye've learned to tell such things out here in th' country, I suppose—"
"There are things," she retorted, "I've learned."