to condone his queerness of conduct.

All the same she sat a foot away from him on the seat, and kept her hands
folded on her lap.

Silas sat for a while smoking in silence, then he spoke.

"Where's this you said you came from?"

"Ireland."

"You don't talk like a Paddy a bit."

"Don't I?"

"Not a bit, nor look like one."

"Have you seen many Irish people?"

"No, mostly in pictures--comic papers, you know, like _Puck_."

"I think it's a shame," broke out Phyl. "People are always making fun of
the Irish, drawing them like monkeys with great upper lips--but it's only
ignorant people who never travel who think of them like that."

"That's so, I expect," replied Silas, either unconscious of the dig at
himself or undesirous of a quarrel, "and the next few dollars I have to
spare I'll go to Ireland. I'm crazy now to see it."

"What's made you crazy to see it?"

"Because it's the place you come from."

Phyl sniffed.

"I hate compliments."

"I wasn't complimenting you, I was complimenting Ireland," said Silas
sweetly. She was silent, a white moth passing close to her held her gaze
for a moment, then it flitted away across the bushes.

"Let's forget Ireland for a moment," said she, "and talk of Charleston. Do
you know many people there?"

"I know most every one. The Pinckneys and Calhouns and Tredegars and
Revenalls and--"

"Rhetts."

"Yes--but there are a dozen Rhetts; same as there's half a hundred
Pinckneys and Calhouns, families, I mean. What's his name--Richard
Pinckney, your guardian, is engaged to a Rhett."

"He is not."

"He is--Venetia Frances, the one that lives in Legare Street. Why, I've
seen them canoodling often, and every one says they are engaged."

"Well, he's not, or Miss Pinckney would have told me."

"Oh, she's blind. I tell you he is, and she'll be your guardian when he's
married her."

"That she won't," said Phyl.

"How'll you help it? A man and wife are one."

"He's only guardian of my property."

"Well, Heaven help your property when she gets a finger in the pie; she'll
spend it on hats--sure."

This outrageous statement, uttered with a laugh, left Phyl cold. The
statement about Frances Rhett had disturbed her, she could not tell
exactly why, for it was none of her business whom Pinckney might choose to
marry--still--Frances Rhett! It was almost as though an antagonism had
existed between them since that afternoon when she had seen Frances first,
driving in the car