Therefore he wished to see her face, and
was disposed to be wary and observant.
He gave her a quick, keen glance as he entered and then said:
"What's the matter, Ida? Why do you sit here in the shadows? It's
as dark as a pocket;" and he turned the gas higher.
She did not answer, but sat down with her face averted from him and
the light. "He has come here as a spy, and not as a comforter,"
she thought.
He looked at her a moment, mistook her silence as an expression of
the settled obstinacy of her purpose.
"Well, Ida," he said, a little irritably, "I know you of old. I
suppose you will have your own way as usual. If we must submit,
why then we must; but you can't expect us to do so with any grace.
If you won't give up this Sibley, for heaven's sake let your mother
arrange the matter after the fashion of the day! Out of regard
for your family, go through all the regular formalities."
She started violently and then leaned back in her chair as if she
were faint, and half stunned by a blow. He regarded her manner as
evidence of guilt, or, at least, of proposed criminal imprudence
on her part, and went on still more plainly:
"If you can't exist without Sibley--why, marry him; but see to it
that there is a plenty of priest, altar, and service; for you know,
or you ought to, that he's a man who can't be trusted a hair's
breadth.
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