"Ah Cal," she added archly, "I am afraid you are as fickle as
ever. What poor girl in Vineville have you left pining?"
The simple face of the man before her flushed with foolish
gratification at this old-fashioned, ambiguous flattery. "Now look yer,
Belle," he said, chuckling, "if you're talking of old times and you
think I bear malice agin Spencer, why"--
But Mrs. Tucker interrupted what might have been an inopportune
sentimental retrospect with a finger of arch but languid warning. "That
will do! I'm dying to know all about it, and you must stay to dinner
and tell me. It's right mean you can't see Spencer too; but he isn't
back from Sacramento yet."
Grateful as a _tete-a-tete_ with his old neighbor in her more
prosperous surroundings would have been, if only for the sake of later
gossiping about it, he felt it would be inconsistent with his pride and
his assumption of present business. More than that, he was uneasily
conscious that in Mrs. Tucker's simple and unaffected manner there was
a greater superiority than he had ever noticed during their previous
acquaintance.
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