"She wouldn't take Jim. She
turned him down cold."
"But that's impossi--"
"It's not. I KNOW she did."
Sibyl looked flatly incredulous.
"And YOU needn't worry," he said, turning to his wife. "This won't
have any effect on your idea, because there wasn't any sense to it,
anyhow. D'you think she'd be very likely to take Bibbs--after she
wouldn't take JIM? She's a good-hearted girl, and she lets Bibbs
come to see her, but if she'd ever given him one sign of encouragement
the way you women think, he wouldn't of acted the stubborn fool he
has--he'd 'a' been at me long ago, beggin' me for some kind of a job
he could support a wife on. There's nothin' in it--and I've got the
same old fight with him on my hands I've had all his life--and the
Lord knows what he won't do to balk me! What's happened now'll
probably only make him twice as stubborn, but--"
"SH!" Mrs. Sheridan, still in the doorway, lifted her hand. "That's
his step--he's comin' down-stairs." She shrank away from the door
as if she feared to have Bibbs see her. "I--I wonder--" she said,
almost in a whisper--"I wonder what he'd goin'--to do."
Her timorousness had its effect upon the others.
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