Her heart beat fiery hot as he lifted his face to her. She breathed heavily, averting her face, almost losing her self-control.
“And what do you take me to be?” she cried, in real helplessness.
His face was lifted watching her, watching her soft, averted face, and the softly heaving mass of her breasts.
“I take you,” he said, with that laconic truthfulness which exercised such power over her, “to be the deuce of a fine woman—darn me if you’re not as fine a built woman as I’ve seen, handsome with it as well. I shouldn’t have expected you to put on such handsome flesh: ’struth I shouldn’t.”
Her heart beat fiery hot, as he watched her with those bright agate eyes, fixedly.
“Been very handsome to you, for fifteen years, my sakes!” she replied.
He made no answer to this, but sat with his bright, quick eyes upon her.
Then he rose. She started involuntarily. But he only said, in his laconic, measured way:
“It’s warm in here now.”
And he pulled off his overcoat, throwing it on the table. She sat as if slightly cowed, whilst he did so.