Eudora.




CHAPTER III

THE INTERVIEW


She was a short, slender little girl, not more than sixteen or
seventeen, with a sweet face and soft brown eyes which drooped as she
came forward, and then looked at him shyly through a mist of tears which
she bravely kept back.

"How d'ye. I'm so glad to see you," she said, looking up at him with
quivering lips which were so unquestionably asking for a kiss that he
gave it, while her face beamed with delight at the caress, and she did
not mind how cold, and stiff, and reserved he grew the next moment.

He did not like her "How d'ye," although he knew how common a salutation
it was at the South. It savored of Mandy Ann, and her accent was like
Mandy Ann's, and her white dress instead of pleasing him filled him with
disgust for himself, as he remembered when he first saw it and thought
it fine. She had worn a rose then, and he had asked her for it, and put
it in his pocket, like an insane idiot, Tom had said. She wore a rose
now, but he didn't ask her for it, and he dropped her hand almost as
soon as he took it, and called himself a brute when he saw the color
come and go in her face, and how she trembled as she sat beside him. He
knew she was pretty, and graceful, and modest, and that she loved him