whatever else it is you may have to do. I’ve noticed he seems a little shy with the child when you are around.”
“Shy with the child when I am around! well I do declare!” exclaimed she, forgetting her late role in her somewhat natural indignation. “And what have I ever done to frighten Mr. Sylvester? Nothing but putting on of a clean apron, when he comes in and a dustin’ of the best chair for his use. It’s a trick of yours to get a chance of speakin’ to him alone, and I’ll not put up with it. As if it wasn’t bad enough to have a kettle with the nozzle dangling, without living with a man who has a secret he won’t share with his own wife and the mother of his innocent babe.”
With a start the worthy man stared at her till he grew red in the face, probably with the effort of keeping his eyes steady for so long a time. “Who told you I had a secret?” said he.
“Who told me?” and then she laughed, though in a somewhat hysterical way, and sat down in the middle of the floor and shook and shook again. “Hear the man!” she cried. And she told him the story of the placard out west and then asked him, “if he thought she didn’t remember how he used to act when he was a chasin’ up of a thief in the days when he was on the police force.”
“But,” he cried, quite as pale now as he had been florid the moment before, “I’m not in the police force now and you are acting quite silly and I’ve no patience with you.” And he was making for the door, presumably to sit upon the stairs, when with a late repentance she seized him by the arm and said:
“La now,” an expression she had caught from Mrs. Kirkshaw, “I didn’t mean nothin’ by my talk. Come back, John; Constantia Maria is not well, and if Mr. Sylvester comes up to see her, I’ll just slip out and leave you alone.”