Part 5 (2/2)
”They don't wear as well as htedly till he broke in, iirl, don't you kno beautiful you are?”
”Of course I do!” she cried, ie of voice; then added, naively, ”That's why I hate to take it off”
”Where did you learn to wear things like that?” he questioned ”Where did you get that--well--that air?”
”It seee about it
The buttons and the hooks and the eyes are all where they belong It's instinct, I suppose, from father's side--”
”Probably I dare say I should understand the mechanism of a dress-suit, even if I'd never seen one,” said the ument
”I've always had visions of wo, white women--never natives--not dressed like this exactly, but in dainty, soft things, not at all like the ones I wear I seeh it's hardly that, either--it's more like a drea too ue and tantalizing to tell what it is, except that I should be called Merridy”
”Merridy? Why that?”
”I'll show you See” She slipped her hand inside the shawl and drew fro ”It was grandot the fancy for the name of Merridy, I suppose”
”May I look?”
”Of course But I daren't take it off I haven't had it off my neck since I was a baby” She held it out for hiht his head close to hers, there was no trace of coquetry in the invitation He read the inscription, ”From Dan to Merridy,” but had no realization of what it limpsed the milk-white flesh al his hair, while the delicate scent of her person see emotion in him She was so dainty and yet so virile, so innocent and yet so wise, so cold and yet so pulsating
”It is very pretty,” he said, inanely
At the look in his eyes as he raised his head her oidened, and she withdrew fro him with a mere inflection
”I wish you would send Poleon here It's time he saw his present”
As Burrell walked out into the air he shut his jaws gri man She's not your kind--she's not your kind”
Inside the store he found Doret and the trader in conversation with a ed nondescript whose overalls were blue and faded and patched, particularly on the front of the legs above the knees, where a shovel-handle wears hardest; whose coat was of yellow mackinaw, the sleeves worn thin below the elbohere they had rubbed against his legs in his work As the soldier entered, the man turned on him a small, shreeather-beaten face with one eye, while he went on talking to Gale
”It ain't nothin' to git excited over, but it's wuth follerin' If I wasn't so cussed unlucky I'd know there was a pay streak soe, Lee,” said the trader, who helped him to roll up a pack of provisions
”Mebbe so Who's the dressmaker?” He jerked his bushy head towards Burrell, who had stopped at the front door with Poleon to exarains in a folded paper
”He's the boss soldier”