im is unsuspecting, as you
did Mr. Theriere that other day. Do you think I fear a THING such as
you--a beast without honor that kicks an unconscious man in the face?
I know that you can kill me. I know that you are coward enough to do it
because I am a defenseless woman; and though you may kill me, you never
can make me show fear for you. That is what you wish to do--that is your
idea of manliness. I had never imagined that such a thing as you lived
in the guise of man; but I have read you, Mr. Byrne, since I have had
occasion to notice you, and I know now that you are what is known in the
great cities as a mucker. The term never meant much to me before, but I
see now that it fits your kind perfectly, for in it is all the loathing
and contempt that a real man--a gentleman--must feel for such as you."

As she spoke Billy Byrne's eyes narrowed; but not with the cunning of
premeditated attack. He was thinking. For the first time in his life he
was thinking of how he appeared in the eyes of another. Never had any
human being told Billy Byrne thus coolly and succinctly what sort of
person he seemed to them. In the heat of anger men of his own stamp had
applied vile epithets to him, describing him luridly as such that by
the simplest laws of nature he could not possibly be; but this girl
had spoken coolly, and her descriptions had been explicit--backed by
illustrations. She had given real reasons for her contempt, and somehow
it had made that contempt seem very tangible.

One who had known Billy would have expected him to fly into a rage and
attack the girl brutally after her scathing diatribe. Billy did nothing
of the sort. Barbara Harding's words seemed to have taken all the fight
out of him. He stood looking at her for a moment--it was one of the
strange contradictions of Billy Byrne's personality that he could
hold his eyes quite steady and level, meeting the gaze of another
unwaveringly--and in that moment something happened to Billy Byrne's
perceptive faculties. It was as though scales which had dimmed his
mental vision had partially dropped away, for suddenly he saw what he
had not before seen--a very beautiful girl, brave and unflinching before
the brutal menace of his attitude, and though the mucker thought that
he still hated her, the realization came to him that he must not raise a
hand against her--that for the life of him he could not, nor ever again
against any other woman. Why this change, Billy did not know, h