I ain't never seen the human yet that she ain't got a good word
for. But I don't know as she cares 'specially 'bout _me_."
Stoddard could not refuse the assurance for which Mandy so naively
angled.
"You wouldn't be so fond of her if she wasn't fond of you," he asserted
confidently.
"Mebbe I wouldn't," Mandy debated; "but I don't know. Let Johnnie put
them two eyes o' hern on you, and laugh in your face, and you feel just
like you'd follow her to the ends of the earth--or I know I do. Why, she
done up my hair this evening and"--the voice sank to a half-shamed
whisper--"she said it was pretty."
Gray turned and looked into the flushed, tremulous face beside him with
a sudden tightening in his throat. How cruel humanity is when it beholds
only the grotesque in the Mandys of this world. Her hair was pretty--and
Johnnie had the eyes of love to see it.
He stared down the long, lighted room with unseeing gaze. Old Andrew
MacPherson's counsel that he let Johnnie Consadine alone appealed to him
at that moment as cruel good sense. He was recalled from his musings by
Mandy's voice.
"Oh, look thar!" whispered his companion excitedly. "The other town
feller has asked for a knock-down to Johnnie, too. Look at him passin'
his bows with her just like she was one of the swells!"
Stoddard looked. Charlie Conroy was relieving Baker of his partner.
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