Billy feels--about you, I mean."

"I'm no Lily Sanderson," Saxon answered indignantly. "I'll never
give Billy Roberts a chance to turn me down."

"You will, if Charley Long butts in. Take it from me, Saxon, he
ain't no gentleman. Look what he done to Mr. Moody. That was a
awful beatin'. An' Mr. Moody only a quiet little man that
wouldn't harm a fly. Well, he won't find Billy Roberts a sissy by
a long shot."

That night, outside the laundry entrance, Saxon found Charley
Long waiting. As he stepped forward to greet her and walk
alongside, she felt the sickening palpitation that he had so
thoroughly taught her to know. The blood ebbed from her face with
the apprehension and fear his appearance caused. She was afraid
of the rough bulk of the man; of the heavy brown eyes, dominant
and confident; of the big blacksmith-hands and the thick strong
fingers with the hair-pads on the back to every first joint. He
was unlovely to the eye, and he was unlovely to all her finer
sensibilities. It was not his strength itself, but the quality of
it and the misuse of it, that affronted her. The beating he had
given the gentle Mr. Moody had meant half-hours of horror to her
afterward. Always did the memory of it come to her accompanied by
a shudder. And yet, without shock, she had seen Billy fight at
Weasel Park in the same primitive man-animal way. But it had been
different. She recognized, but could not analyze, the difference.
She was aware only of the brutishness of this man's hands and
mind.