overrun with weeds, but she could not entirely conceal her agitation
from her stepfather's cold grey eyes.

"Oh, there you are, Ella," he said, with all that false geniality of
his that filled the girl with such loathing and distrust. "Have you
seen Dunn? Oh, there he is, isn't he? I wanted to ask you, Ella,
what do you think of Dunn?"

She glanced over her shoulder towards where Dunn stood, and she
managed to answer with a passable air of indifference.

"Well, I suppose," she said, "that he is quite the ugliest man I
ever saw. Of course, if he cut all of that hair off--"

Deede Dawson laughed though his eyes remained as hard and cold as
ever.

"I shall have to give him orders to shave," he said. "Your mother
was telling me I ought to the other day, she said it didn't look
respectable to have a man about with all that hair on his face.
Though I don't see myself why hair isn't respectable, do you?"

"It looks odd," answered Ella carelessly.

Deede Dawson laughed again, and walked on to where Dunn was standing
waiting for him. With his perpetual smile that his cold and evil
eyes so strangely contradicted, he said to him:

"Well, what have you and Ella been talking about?"