Page:RidersOfSilences - Max Brand.djvu/300

294 The pride of Mary held her stiff and straight, though her voice shook.

"Has he sent you after me with mockery?"

"No, he's given up the hope of you."

"The hope?"

"Don't you see? Are you going to make me crawl to explain? It always seemed to me that God meant Pierre for me. It always seemed to me that a girl like me was what he needed. But Pierre had never seen it. Maybe, if my hair was yellow an' my eyes blue, he might have felt different; but the way it is, he's always treated me like a kid brother—"

"And lived with you?" said the other sternly.

"Like two men! D'you understand how a woman could be the bunky of a man an' yet be no more to him than—than a man would be. You don't? Neither do I, but that's what I've been to Pierre le Rouge. What's that?"

She lifted her head and stood poised as if for flight. Once more the vague sound blew up to them upon the wind. Mary ran to her and grasped both of her hands in her own.

"If it's true—"

But Jack snatched her hands away and looked on the other with a mighty hatred and a mightier contempt.

"True? Why, it damn near finishes Pierre with me to think he'd take up with—a thing like you. But it's true. If somebody else had told me I'd of laughed at 'em. But it's true. Tell me: what'll you do with him?"