"Show her in," he said quietly.
But she had already entered, brushing scornfully past the officer, and
drawing her skirt aside, as if contaminated: a very pretty Southern
girl, scornful and red-lipped, clad in a gray riding-habit, and still
carrying her riding-whip clenched ominously in her slim, gauntleted
hand!
"You have my permit in your hand," she said brusquely, hardly raising
her eyes to Brant. "I suppose it's all straight enough,--and even if it
isn't, I don't reckon to be kept waiting with those hirelings."
"Your 'permit' is 'straight' enough, Miss Faulkner," said Brant, slowly
reading her name from the document before him. "But, as it does not seem
to include permission to insult my officers, you will perhaps allow them
first to retire."
He made a sign to the officer, who passed out of the door.
As it closed, he went on, in a gentle but coldly unimpassioned voice,--
"I perceive you are a Southern lady, and therefore I need not remind you
that it is not considered good form to treat even the slaves of those
one does not like uncivilly, and I must, therefore, ask you to keep your
active animosity for myself."
The young girl lifted her eyes. She had evidently not expected to meet
a man so young, so handsome, so refined, and so coldly invincible in
manner.
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