"
"Well?" Frona was the least bit angry, and did not feel inclined to
help him.
"Marriage, iv course," he blurted out. "'Tis said it looks that way
with the pair of ye."
"But is it said that it _is_ that way?"
"Isn't the looks iv it enough ?" he demanded.
"No; and you are old enough to know better. Mr. St. Vincent and I--we
enjoy each other as friends, that is all. But suppose it is as you
say, what of it?"
"Well," McCarthy deliberated, "there's other talk goes round, 'Tis
said Vincent is over-thick with a jade down in the town--Lucile, they
speak iv her."
"All of which signifies?"
She waited, and McCarthy watched her dumbly.
"I know Lucile, and I like her," Frona continued, filling the gap of
his silence, and ostentatiously manoeuvring to help him on. "Do you
know her? Don't you like her?"
Matt started to speak, cleared his throat, and halted. At last, in
desperation, he blurted out, "For two cents, Frona, I'd lay ye acrost
me knee."
She laughed. "You don't dare. I'm not running barelegged at Dyea."
"Now don't be tasin'," he blarneyed.
"I'm not teasing. Don't you like her?--Lucile?"
"An' what iv it?" he challenged, brazenly.
"Just what I asked,--what of it?"
"Thin I'll tell ye in plain words from a man old enough to be yer
father. 'Tis undacent, damnably undacent, for a man to kape company
with a good young girl--"
"Thank you," she laughed, dropping a courtesy.
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