in a crescendo of insult . Faith walked on , seemingly oblivious . But her lip trembled slightly with a sense of outrage . She knew she was no match for Dan Reese when it came to an exchange of epithets . She wished Jem Blythe had been with her instead of Walter . If Dan Reese had dared to call her a pig-girl in Jem 's hearing , Jem would have wiped up the dust with him . But it never occurred to Faith to expect Walter to do it , or blame him for not doing it . Walter , she knew , never fought other boys . Neither did Charlie Clow of the north road . The strange part was that , while she despised Charlie for a coward , it never occurred to her to disdain Walter . It was simply that he seemed to her an inhabitant of a world of his own , where different traditions prevailed . Faith would as soon have expected a starry-eyed young angel to pummel dirty , freckled Dan Reese for her as Walter Blythe . She would not have blamed the angel and she did not blame Walter Blythe . But she wished that sturdy Jem or Jerry had been there and Dan 's insult continued to rankle in her soul . Walter was pale no longer . He had flushed crimson and his beautiful eyes were clouded with shame and anger . He knew that he ought to have avenged Faith . Jem would have sailed right in and made Dan eat his words with bitter sauce . Ritchie Warren would have overwhelmed Dan with worse `` names '' than Dan had called Faith . But Walter could not -- simply could not -- `` call names . ''
He knew he would get the worst XXXXX it .
If as for in of than that to while with