Page:Caroline Lockhart--The Fighting Shepherdess.djvu/317

 " It's no use having this tantrum, Prissy," he said inex- orably.

Tantrum! The final insult. Mrs. Pantin squealed with rage and gnawed the corner of the leather pillow.

" You might as well come out of it," he admonished further. ** You'll only make your eyes red and give your- self a headache."

" You're a brute, Abram Pantin, and I wish I'd never seen you!"

Mr. Pantin suppressed the reply that the wish was mutual. Instead, he picked up the leather button which flew on the floor when Mrs. Pantin doubled her fist and smote the davenport.

" I doubt very much if she'd come, even if you ask her," said Pantin. It was a stroke of genius.

" Not come! " The eye which Mrs. Pantin exposed regarded Mr. Pantin scornfully. "Not come? Why, she'd be tickled to pieces."

But of that Mr. Pantin continued to have his own opinion.

Mrs. Pantin sat up and winked rapidly in her indigna- tion.

" She's made if I take her up, and the woman isn't so stupid as not to know it, is she? "

" She may not see it from that angle," dryly. " At any rate, you'll be pleasing me greatly by asking her."

Mrs. Pantin looked at her husband fixedly :

" Why this deep interest, Abram? "

Flattered by the implied accusation, Mr. Pantin, how- ever, resisted the temptation to make Mrs. Pantin jealous, and answered truthfully:

" I admire her greatly. She deserves recognition and will get it. If you are a wise woman you'll swallow your prejudices and be the first to admit it."