"An' so people say, 'Poor old Joe!' an' they don't know what they mean, when they say it. They think I am a man without the ambitions an' passions of other men; a simple, good fellow, without too much brain, an' only the heart of a fool. But they don't know me—they don't know me!"
"How could they, without hearing what you have just told me, or without knowing you as I know you?"
"They never will know. I don't want to be pitied for my mistakes. 'Poor old Joe' is proud, as well as poor."
Mrs. Smiley sat silent, gazing at the river's silver ripples. Her shapely hands were folded in her lap; her whole attitude quiet, absorbed. Whether she was thinking of what she had heard, or whether she had forgotten it, no one could have guessed from her manner; and Chillis could not wait to know. The fountains of the deep had been stirred until they would not rest.
"Was there no other question you asked yourself about the old mountain man which he can answer? Did you never wonder whether he ever had loved at all?"
"You have made me wonder, to-night, whether, at some period of your life, you have not loved some woman of your own race and color. You must have had some opportunities of knowing white women."
"Very few. An' my pride was agin seekin' what I knew was not for me; for the woman I fancied to myself was no common white woman. White Rose, I carried a young man's heart in my bosom until I was near sixty, an' then I lost it." He put out a hand and touched one of hers, ever so lightly. "I need not tell you any more."
A silence that made their pulses seem audible followed this confession. A heavy shadow descended upon both hearts, and a sudden dreary sense of an unutterable and unalterable sorrow burdened their spirits.
After a little, "Mr. Chillis! Mr. Chillis!" wailed the woman's pathetic voice; and "O, my lovely lady!" sighed the man's.
