His voice was bantering, but had a note of impatience. The events of the day had not made him in humour to take lightly any estimate of himself that seemed to reflect on his manliness.
She noticed it. Her voice when she answered him had a caressing sound as though she realised she had vexed him and would beg excuse. "Nay, only that thou art not for the rough ways--such as thou," she said; and, mollified, he laughed and told her: "Well, you never used to think so, anyway. You've changed, you know, Ima, changed a lot since I last saw you."
"And should have changed," Japhra announced. "Scholar with lesson books, she has been these winter months."
Percival thought that very quaint. "Scholar, Ima; have you?" he asked her, and saw the blood run up beneath her dusky skin. "I can't imagine you at lessons!"
"Nor those who taught me," she replied; and paused and added very gravely, speaking in her gentle voice, "Yet have I learnt--and still shall learn."
Odd her ways--oddly attractive, oddly disconcerting; speaking steadily and more as if it were to herself and not to listeners that she spoke. "Learnt to sit on a chair," she told him, "and to sit at a table nicely; to wear shoes on my feet, and stockings; to go to church and sing to God in heaven; to talk properly as house folk talk; to sleep in a bed; to wear a hat and stiff clothes; to abide within doors when the rain falls and when the stars alight in the sky--these have I learnt."
Percival was tempted to laugh, but her gravity forbade him. "How terrible it sounds--for you! But why, Ima, why?"
She did not answer the question. She smiled gently at him and went on with the same air of speaking to herself: "Lessons from books, also. Figures and the making of sums; geography--as capes and bays and what men make and where; of a new fashion of how to hold the pen stiffly in writing; of nice ways in speaking--chiefly that I should say 'you' when I would say 'thou'--that is hardest to me; but I shall learn."
Something almost pleading was in her voice as she repeated, "I shall learn;" and Percival turned for relief of his puzzlement to Japhra: "Why, whatever's it all for, Japhra?"
Japhra gave his tight-lipped smile. "Woman's reasons--who shall discover such?" But Ima made a motion of protest, and he went on: "Nay, the chance fell, and truly I was glad she should have woman's company--and gentle company. In Norfolk where we pitched the winter gone by was a doctor I had known when we were young--he and I. He shipped twice aboard a cattle boat with me, having the restlessness on him in those days. Now I found him stout and proper, but not forgetful of an indifferent matter between us. He brought his lady to the van, and she conceived a fancy for Ima, holding her a fair, wild thing that should be tamed. Therefore took Ima to her house and to her board, and taught her as she hath instructed thee. Thus was the manner of it; as to the wherefore--why, woman's reasons, as I have said," and he smiled again.