None of the men
offered to assist her, and Leroy watching her, felt a sudden sense of
annoyance that this woman should seem, even for a moment, to be in the
position of a servant to them all.
"Can I do nothing for you?" he said, in a low tone--"Why should you
wait upon us?"
"Why indeed!" she answered--"Except that you are all by nature awkward,
and do not know how to wait properly upon yourselves!"
Her eyes had a gleam of mischievous mockery in them; and Leroy was
conscious of an irritation which he could scarcely explain to himself.
Decidedly, he thought, this Lotys was an unpleasant woman. She was
'extremely plain,' so he mentally declared, in a kind of inward huff,--
though he was bound to concede that now and then she had a very
beautiful, almost inspired expression. After all, why should she not
set out jugs and bottles, and loaves of bread, and hunks of ham and
cheese before these men? She was probably in their pay! Scarcely had
this idea flashed across his mind than he was ashamed of it. This
Lotys, whoever she might actually be, was no paid hireling; there was
something in her every look and action that set her high above any
suspicion that she would accept the part of a salaried _comedienne_
in the Socialist farce. Annoyed with himself, though he knew not why,
he turned his gaze from her to the man who had brought in the supper,
--a hunchback, who, notwithstanding his deformity, was powerfully built,
and of a countenance which, marked as it was with the drawn pathetic
look of long-continued physical suffering, was undeniably handsome.
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