"Of courthe."
Teresa turned very white. Curson was prepared for an outburst of
fury--perhaps even another attack. But the crushed and beaten woman
only gazed at him with frightened and imploring eyes. "For God's sake,
Dick, don't say that!"
The amiable cynic was staggered. His good-humor and a certain
chivalrous instinct he could not repress got the better of him. He
shrugged his shoulders. "What I thay, and what you _do_, Teretha,
needn't make us quarrel. I've no claim on you--I know it. Only"--a
vivid sense of the ridiculous, powerful in men of his stamp, completed
her victory--"only don't thay anything about my coming down here to cut
you out from the--the--_the sheriff_." He gave utterance to a short but
unaffected laugh, made a slight grimace, and turned to go.
Teresa did not join in his mirth. Awkward as it would have been if he
had taken a severer view of the subject, she was mortified even amidst
her fears and embarrassment at his levity. Just as she had become
convinced that his jealousy had made her over-conscious, his apparent
good-humored indifference gave that over-consciousness a guilty
significance.
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