Page:Raymond Spears--Diamond Tolls.djvu/49

 who had damned her and then fled staggering from her—hard hit and preferring the open door to the river rather than approach her, even to get to the river bank.

She looked at herself in the mirror, and remembered the look on the faces of the river women whom she had seen up the river the previous night, women whom she had envied, even to their colourless skins and grim, knowing eyes. Something about those women stirred her deeply. They possessed so many things that a young and pretty girl, tripping down Old Mississip' for the first time, could not possess. There was a poise, an independence, a certain erectness which Delia wondered if she would ever possess.

She was startled with delight when she saw in her own countenance that same expression now. It had never been in her eyes and face before. She had always felt hunted, and she had always been hunted—but now she was neither hunted nor afraid. She had met a man on his own grounds and driven him reeling backward, cursing, whipped, and glad to escape into the coiling river if only thereby he could find his way from her presence!

A curious, satisfied calm followed the panic which had affected her during the hours when she was looking for some safe place from his pursuit. It seemed to her as though the river had ceased to menace, and it