At an age when Angelique would be faded, Peggy's richest
bloom would appear. She was like the wild grapes under the bluffs; it
required frost to ripen her. But women whom nature thus obliges to wait
for beauty seldom do it graciously; transition is not repose.
"Well, which is it to be, Rice Jones or Pierre Menard? Be candid with
me, Angelique, as I would be with you. You know you will have to decide
some time."
"I do not think Monsieur Reece Zhone is for me," said Angelique, with
intuitive avoidance of Colonel Menard's name; Peggy cared nothing for
the fate of Colonel Menard. "Indeed, I believe his mind dwells more on
his sister now than on any one else."
"I hate people's relations!" cried Peggy brutally; "especially their
sick relations. I couldn't run every evening to pet Maria Jones and feed
her pap."
"I do not pet her nor feed her pap," declared Angelique, put on the
defensive. "Don't be a little beast, Peggy," she added in French.
"I see how it is: you are going to take him. The man who needs a bug in
his ear worse than any other man in the Territory will never be handed
over to me to get it.
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