I want her.”  Flip fell into one of her suggestive silences.  Lance watched her earnestly, mollified by a single furtive glance from her significant eyes; the rain dashed against the windows, and occasionally spattered and hissed in the hearth of the broad chimney, and Mr. David Fairley, somewhat assuaged by the internal administration of whiskey, grew more loquacious.  The genius of incongruity and inconsistency which generally ruled his conduct came out with freshened vigor under the gentle stimulation of spirit.  “On an evening like this,” he began, comfortably settling himself on the floor beside the chimney, “ye might rig yerself out in them new duds and fancy fixin’s that that Sacramento shrimp sent ye, and let your own flesh and blood see ye.  If that’s too much to do for your old dad, ye might do it to please that digger squaw as a Christian act.”  Whether in the hidden depths of the old man’s consciousness there was a feeling of paternal vanity in showing this wretched aborigine the value and importance of the treasure she was about to guard, I cannot say.  Flip darted an interrogatory look at Lance, who nodded a quiet assent, and she flew into the inner room.  She did not linger on the details of her toilet, but reappeared almost the next moment in her new finery, buttoning the neck of her gown as she entered the room, and chastely stopping at the window to characteristically pull up her stocking.  The peculiarity of her situation increased her usual shyness; she played with the black and gold beads of a handsome necklace—­Lance’s last gift—­as the merest child might; her unbuckled shoe gave the squaw a natural opportunity of showing her admiration and devotion by insisting upon buckling it, and gave Lance, under that disguise, an opportunity of covertly kissing the little foot and ankle in the shadow of the chimney; an event which provoked slight hysterical symptoms in Flip and caused her to sit suddenly down in spite of the remonstrances of her parent.  “Ef you can’t quit gigglin’ and squirmin’ like an Injin baby yourself, ye’d better get rid o’ them duds,” he ejaculated with peevish scorn.

Yet, under this perfunctory rebuke, his weak vanity could not be hidden, and he enjoyed the evident admiration of a creature, whom he believed to be half-witted and degraded, all the more keenly because it did not make him jealous.  She could not take Flip from him.  Rendered garrulous by liquor, he went to voice his contempt for those who might attempt it.  Taking advantage of his daughter’s absence to resume her homely garments, he whispered confidentially to Lance: 

“Ye see these yer fine dresses, ye might think is presents.  Pr’aps Flip lets on they are.  Pr’aps she don’t know any better.  But they ain’t presents.  They’re only samples o’ dressmaking and jewelry that a vain, conceited shrimp of a feller up in Sacramento sends down here to get customers for.  In course I’m to pay for ’em.  In course he reckons I’m to do it.  In course I calkilate to