Did you,
Clarence?"
She looked so irresponsible, sitting there with her face near his,
and so childishly, or perhaps thoughtlessly, happy, that he could only
admire her levity, and even the slight shock that her flippant allusion
to his wife had given him seemed to him only a weakness of his own.
After all, was not hers the true philosophy? Why should not these bright
eyes see things more clearly than his own? Nevertheless, with his eyes
still fixed upon them, he continued,--
"And Jim was willing to go?"
She stopped, with her fingers still lifting a lock of his hair. "Why,
yes, you silly--why shouldn't he? I'd like to see him refuse. Why, Lord!
Jim will do anything I ask him." She put down the lock of hair, and
suddenly looking full into his eyes, said, "That's just the difference
between him and me, and you and--that woman!"
"Then you love him!"
"About as much as you love her," she said, with an unaffected laugh;
"only he don't wind me around his finger."
No doubt she was right for all her thoughtlessness, and yet he was going
to fight about that woman to-morrow! No--he forgot; he was going to
fight Captain Pinckney because he was like her!
Susy had put her finger on the crease between his brows which this
supposition had made, and tried to rub it out.
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