“Yes,” she said. “I know how things go. They’re voting to kill folks—Oh my God!”
The Inger blazed up in a flame.
“It ain’t any such thing!” he burst out. “They don’t care a hang about killing folks—not for the fun o’ killing!”
He hurled his new fact at her, passionately anxious that she should understand.
“Don’t you see?” he cried. “It’s for somethin’—it’s for somethin’! That’s all the difference. It’s grand! It’s—it’s grand—” He shook with his effort to make her know.
“It’s killing ’em just as dead!” she said, and she wept.
Here the Inger received an unexpected ally. The woman with the blue-boned hand beside Lory leaned forward, and touched the girl’s arm with her pink, spangled fan:
“My child,” she said, “try to understand: killing is so small a part of it all!”
Lory faced her, and her eyes blazed into the faded eyes of her.
“Did you ever see your father kill a sheriff?” she asked. “Well, mine did—and I watched him. And I tell you, no matter how murderin’ is done, it’s hell. If you don’t know that, take it from me!”