"Me like to see it!" exclaimed the old woman. "What should I like to see her make a fool of herself for?"
"I've seen people look bigger fools," he said. Clara was under his protection now.
"Oh, ay! and when was that?" came the sarcastic rejoinder.
"When they made frights of themselves," he answered.
Mrs. Radford, large and threatening, stood suspended on the hearthrug, holding her fork.
"They're fools either road," she answered at length, turning to the Dutch oven.
"No," he said, fighting stoutly. "Folk ought to look as well as they can."
"And do you call THAT looking nice!" cried the mother, pointing a scornful fork at Clara. "That--that looks as if it wasn't properly dressed!"
"I believe you're jealous that you can't swank as well," he said laughing.
"Me! I could have worn evening dress with anybody, if I'd wanted to!" came the scornful answer.
"And why didn't you want to?" he asked pertinently. "Or DID you wear it?"
There was a long pause. Mrs. Radford readjusted the bacon in the Dutch oven. His heart beat fast, for fear he had offended her.
"Me!" she exclaimed at last. "No, I didn't! And when I was in service, I knew as soon as one of the maids came out in bare shoulders what sort SHE was, going to her sixpenny hop!"
"Were you too good to go to a sixpenny hop?" he said.
Clara sat with bowed head. His eyes were dark and glittering. Mrs. Radford took the Dutch oven from the fire, and stood near him, putting bits of bacon on his plate.
"THERE'S a nice crozzly bit!" she said.
"Don't give me the best!" he said.
"SHE'S got what SHE wants," was the answer.
There was a sort of scornful forbearance in the woman's tone that made Paul know she was mollified.
"But DO have some!" he said to Clara.
She looked up at him with her grey eyes, humiliated and lonely.
"No thanks!" she said.
"Why won't you?" he answered carelessly.
The blood was beating up like fire in his veins. Mrs. Radford sat down again, large and impressive and aloof. He left Clara altogether to attend to the mother.
"They say Sarah Bernhardt's fifty," he said.
"Fifty! She's turned sixty!" came the scornful answer.
"Well," he said, "you'd never think it! She made me want to howl even now."