"No, I bought them. Who would give me any thing that I cannot purchase for myself? The jeweller imported them expressly to tempt me."
She resumed all her confidence now. This allusion to the jewels soothed her into the idea that it was only a spasm of jealousy which had influenced his words. She leaned her white arm on his shoulder again, and touched his cheek with her own, glancing down on the book he had been reading.
He closed the volume suddenly, and leaned his arm upon it.
"And you wont let me read?"
"No."
"Want me out of the way, perhaps?"
"Yes!"
The woman rose to her full height, and in her haughty anger would have swept from the room, but on second thought she drew a chair, and sat down opposite him, leaning her arm on the table.
"Nelson," she said, in her clear, rich voice, which, spite of herself, shook with suppressed passion, "you are angry because I have had so little time to give you of late."
He looked her steadily in the face.