A souvenir! and of what?
Not of the ridicule she had turned upon him! not the jest she had made upon his boastfulness.

Now which of these two did this argue: was this levity, or was it falsehood?
Was she so little mindful of honesty that she would show these signs of favour to one she held most cheaply, or was it that her distaste to this man was mere pretence, and only assumed to deceive others.
After all, Joe Atlee was a nobody; flattery might call him an adventurer, but he was not even so much.

Amongst the men of the dangerous party he mixed with he was careful never to compromise himself.

He might write the songs of rebellion, but he was little likely to tamper with treason itself.
So much he would tell her when he got back.

Not angrily, nor passionately, for that would betray him and disclose his jealousy, but in the tone of a man revealing something he regretted--confessing to the blemish of one he would have liked better to speak well of.