Passing to the other side of the room and joining the company there, Carley
presently took a casual glance at the door. Several men were lounging
there. One of them was the sheep dipper, Haze Ruff. His bold eyes were on
her now, and his coarse face wore a slight, meaning smile, as if he
understood something about her that was a secret to others. Carley dropped
her eyes. But she could not shake off the feeling that wherever she moved
this man's gaze followed her. The unpleasantness of this incident would
have been nothing to Carley had she at once forgotten it. Most
unaccountably, however, she could not make herself unaware of this
ruffian's attention. It did no good for her to argue that she was merely
the cynosure of all eyes. This Ruff's tone and look possessed something
heretofore unknown to Carley. Once she was tempted to tell Glenn. But that
would only cause a fight, so she kept her counsel. She danced again, and
helped Flo entertain her guests, and passed that door often; and once stood
before it, deliberately, with all the strange and contrary impulse so
inscrutable in a woman, and never for a moment wholly lost the sense of the
man's boldness. It dawned upon her, at length, that the singular thing
about this boldness was its difference from any, which had ever before
affronted her.
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