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Kate was absolutely convinced that Ford was at last really drunk and "on the rampage," and she had a terrible vision of slain girlhood in the kitchen, so that she was torn between mother-love and her desire to protect Phenie. But Ford had looked so threateningly at her and Buddy that she could not bring herself to attract his attention to the child or herself.
"Oh, he sloped with a thousand dollars of the railway people's money. They caught him, and he got seven years." "He was married, wasn't he?" she asked in a low voice. "Yes, to Phenie Tyson. There's no children, so she's all right, and divorce is cheap over in the States, where she is now."
And I'm just as much of an advocate for temperance as you are, Phenie and I think Ford was just right to fight those men. There are," she declared wisely, "circumstances where it's perfectly just and right for a man to fight. I can imagine circumstances under which Chester would be justified in fighting " "In case sixteen men should hold his nose and pour drugged whisky down his throat?"
"Lordy me!" he observed aloud, "I sure didn't come any too soon!" "Oh, it's all out! I don't know how I ever shall thank you in this world! With Phenie in bed with a sprained ankle so she couldn't walk, and the men all gone, I was just wild! I why " Kate, standing upon the stairs so that she could look into the loft, stopped suddenly and stared at Ford with some astonishment.
"Phenie Tyson didn't marry Abner because he was a saint, but because he was a man, I suppose," she replied, gravely. "And the old folks?" "Both dead. What Abner done sent the old man to his grave. But Abner's mother died a year before." "What Abner done killed his father," said Abel Baragar, with dry emphasis. "Phenie Tyson was extravagant wanted this and that, and nothin' was too good for her.
Phenie had plenty of spirit; she could run down to the bunk-house Mrs. Kate heard a door slam then, and shuddered. Phenie, she judged swiftly, had locked herself into the pantry. Phenie had. Or, to be exact, she had run in and slammed the door shut in Ford's very face, and she was leaning her weight against it. Mrs.
Josephine screwed her lips into a soundless expression of pain, smiled afterwards when Kate glanced at her commiseratingly, and pulled a long, dark-brown braid forward over her chest. "Do you want tea, Phenie? or would you rather have chocolate to-day? I can make chocolate just as easy as not; I think I shall, anyway. Buddy is so fond of it and " "Is that man here yet?"
I've got to see an eminent Gorgon of respectability, who has a finishing school here for the young person bien clevee," said Anstruther, eyeing the unknown. "Hardly in your line, Anstruther!" laughed Hawke, casting his eyes around the depleted table, for Miss Phenie and Miss Genie Forbes had vanished at last, leaving behind them expanding wave circles of sharply echoing comment.
The Anglo-Indians, however, calmly pursued their dinner and gossip regardless of the fact that Miss "Phenie" had violently nudged Miss "Genie," and whispered in a stage aside: "Say, Genie, look at those two English fellows! They are something like I bet you that they are two Lords!"
"They'd be sticking out their tongues at each other if they was twenty years younger; pity they ain't, too; it would be a relief to 'em both!" "Phenie provokes me almost past endurance!" Mrs. Kate complained, burying two plump forearms in a dishpan of sudsy hot water, and bringing up a handful of silver.
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