"
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.
Pages:
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115