There was that in his voice then which she had heard when he ordered
men.
Joan looked her defiance.
"If you don't have it on when I come I'll--I'll tear your rags off! ...
I can do that. You're a strong little devil, and maybe I'm not
well enough yet to put this outfit on you. But I can get help. ...
If you anger me I might wait for--Gulden!"
Joan's legs grew weak under her, so that she had to sink on the bed.
Kells would do absolutely and literally what he threatened. She
understood now the changing secret in his eyes. One moment he was a
certain kind of a man and the very next he was incalculably
different. She instinctively recognized this latter personality as
her enemy. She must use all the strength and wit and cunning and
charm to keep his other personality in the ascendancy, else all was
futile.
"Since you force me so--then I must," she said.
Kells left her without another word.
Joan removed her stained and torn dress and her worn-out boots; then
hurriedly, for fear Kells might return, she put on the dead boy-
bandit's outfit. Dandy Dale assuredly must have been her
counterpart, for his things fitted her perfectly. Joan felt so
strange that she scarcely had courage enough to look into the
mirror. When she did look she gave a start that was of both amaze
and shame. But for her face she never could have recognized herself.
What had become of her height, her slenderness? She looked like an
audacious girl in a dashing boy masquerade. Her shame was singular,
inasmuch as it consisted of a burning hateful consciousness that she
had not been able to repress a thrill of delight at her appearance,
and that this costume strangely magnified every curve and swell of
her body, betraying her feminity as nothing had ever done.
And just at that moment Kells knocked on the door and called, "Joan,
are you dressed?"
"Yes," she replied. But the word seemed involuntary.
Then Kells came in.
It was an instinctive and frantic impulse that made Joan snatch up a
blanket and half envelop herself in it. She stood with scarlet face
and dilating eyes, trembling in every limb. Kells had entered with
an expectant smile and that mocking light in his gaze. Both faded.
He stared at the blanket--then at her face. Then he seemed to
comprehend this ordeal. And he looked sorry for her.
"Why you--you little--fool!" he exclaimed, with emotion. And that
emotion seemed to exasperate him. Turning away from her, he gazed
out between the logs. Again, as so many times before, he appeared to
be remembering something that was hard to recall, and vague.