Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Silent Sam and other stories.djvu/232

220 She Had the blood of a Polishwoman in her. "You can do what you like," she said icily.

"Are you comin'?"

"Not if I know it. No." She reached her glass.

He glared at Barney. "That settles it." He swung on his heel and went back to the bar where he had been standing in a line of picnic officials. Barney followed him with his eyes, half amused and half apprehensive.

"Hello! There 's Uncle Mike," Barney said, in an attempt to cover the silence. "He must 'a' missed the boat, too."

The girl did not reply. When he turned, she met him with a blazing scrutiny, and he laughed to ease her indignation.

"Would n't that jar you?" he said. "Tim 's on horseback, eh? D' you care?"

She drank her glass to the dregs. "Not a whole lot." She rose, throwing back her shoulders and settling her belt with arms akimbo, smiling on him brilliantly. "I saw a shady place out at the back."

"This 's where I come in," he said. "Trot me along."

It was the parental opinion that there was a "deal o' the divil" in Barney, and his relations with his more intense brother had always been sardonic. "You don't want to take too much stock in anything Tim ever says when he 's on his ear," he counseled her, as they went. "Rub him th' other way the next time you see him, an' he 'll ferget all about it."

"Will he? Well, I won't."