Farmer Tresidder groaned. "Young man, where's your gumption? You'm
makin' a mess o't--an' I thought 'ee so very clever."
"Really," pursued the stranger imperturbably, without lifting his eyes
from Ruby, "I don't know which to admire most, your father's head or his
heart; his head, I think, on the whole. So much hospitality, paternal
solicitude, and commercial prudence was surely never packed into one
scheme."
He broke off for a minute and, still looking at her, began to drum with
his finger-tips on the cloth. His mouth was pursed up as if silently
whistling an air. Ruby could neither move nor speak. The spell upon
her was much like that which had lain on Young Zeb, the night before,
during the hornpipe. She felt weak as a child in the presence of this
man, or rather as one recovering from a long illness. He seemed to fill
the room, speaking words as if they were living things, as if he were
taking the world to bits and re-arranging it before her eyes.
She divined the passion behind these words, and she longed to get a
sight of it, to catch an echo of the voice that had sung beneath her
window, an hour before. But when he resumed, it was in the same
bloodless and contemptuous tone.
Pages:
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88