“Oh, it was on your account. It was of you I was thinking.”
“Then you don’t mind on your own?”
“Not a hang.”
She glanced at him in silent approval. This straight, erect fearlessness—this readiness to defy the whole world for her sake appealed to her. She was of the mind of those women of other times and peoples—the possession of whom depended on the possessor’s ability to take and keep.
“Well, I must leave you now for a little while,” she said. “Those two pickannins are only of any use when I am looking after them. They haven’t even learnt to lay a table.”
“Let me help you.”
“No. Candidly, I don’t want you. Be a good boy, Justin, and sit still and rest after your walk. Oh, by the way—” And unlocking a cupboard, she produced a bottle of whisky. “I was very forgetful. You’ll like something to drink after the said walk?”
“No, thanks. Really I don’t.”
“You don’t? No wonder you’ve done no good prospecting. A prospector who refuses a drink after a hot afternoon’s exertion! Why, you haven’t learnt the rudiments of your craft yet. But you must want one, and so I’ll fix it up for you. There, say when—is that right?” she went on brightly, holding out the glass. “Yes, I know what you are going to say—of course it is, if I mixed it. You ought to be ashamed to utter such a threadbare banality.”
He took the glass from her hand, but set it down untasted. The magnetism of her eyes had drawn him. It seemed to madden him, to sap his very reason, to stir every fibre in his body.