Page:Delight - de la Roche - 1926.djvu/208

 She came to the kitchen one sultry afternoon towards Fair time to tell Mrs. Bye and Annie that she had been to see Delight. She had gone up to her room and sat with her there, and Delight had kissed her and stroked her hand, and stared at her so hard with those wild, bright eyes that she had made her feel queer. She had Jim Sykes' trunk in her room and she had taken out a jersey of his and shown Pearl how it still held the shape of his body, just as though he were dead like Edwin. Not that she could do such a thing with Edwin's clothes—

"I'll bet you couldn't," interrupted Charley, "hisn 'ud lie flat enough, I'll be bound, fur he'd neither breast nor vitals to hold 'em out."

Pearl looked hurt, and Mrs. Bye said sharply—

"Nonsense, Charley. He was a gentleman, and he didn't have any need of such things."

"I reckon," persisted Charley, "that I'd leave a impress on my shirt that a year couldn't flatten."

"I reckon Bill will flatten you, if you don't get a move on with that ice," put in Annie.

Charley picked up the pail of broken ice and moved heavily to the door, muttering:

"Well, he won't have me to bully much longer. Three nights hand runnin' I've dreamed on my buck rabbit and it never fails to bring a change."

"Just the same, it is very queer about Delight Mainprize," said Pearl, when he had gone: "Everybody's talking about her. Folks you'd never expect would have heard of her. I wouldn't dare tell my landlady, Miss Sniffin, that I've been to see her. Only this morning she said that a girl like that ought to be run out of the town. And then she asked me what she looked like. She couldn't hear enough about her looks and her dancing and everything. And then she said she was going to ask