Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Silent Sam and other stories.djvu/223

Rh worn it in the expectation of making the excursion alone with the elder brother, coquetting with his dazzled admiration; and, in order to array herself in it, freshly-ironed, she had kept him late for the steamboat in which he had intended to make the trip with the other politicians of the "Dry Dime Dolan Association." Consequently he had had to go on this barge, with the undistinguished horde, and he was still surly from the disappointment. Besides, he was one of the cart-tail orators of the association; he had a speech to deliver, that afternoon, on the Irish question; he was turning over in his mind some phrases of passionate invective, keeping them warm; and Barney's loquacity disturbed his sulky preoccupation.

The girl had received Barney's wink blankly. She glanced aside at Tim's shifting and restless scowl. Then she returned to consider Barney a moment as she passed him with her glance. Their eyes met; and she gave him one of those indescribable looks with which the young women of her training accept the challenge of a flirtation—a look that tempers a calm stare of large pupils with a lurking smile.

It was the first time that she had met any of Tim's family, and she had been studying them all. She had accepted the mother as harmlessly meek, the father as weak and incapable. She had understood Barney's advances, and received them indifferently as the awkward tribute of the young male. If she resolved to encourage them now, it was only because she resented Tim's behavior.