"Thet's the place yo'-all belongs by rights, an' thet's th' place I'm a goin' t' take yo'. I bin in all th' big towns below, an' in Mexico, an' I'll swear t' Gawd I hain't never seen a gal with yore purtiness! They hain't no gal a livin' with curls fixed aroun' a face like yo'ren! Gawd only made one pair o' blue eyes—yo' got 'em! Heah, Belle-Ann, I want yo' t' marry me, eh? Cap an' th' boys air gone, an' Slab's away. Let's hurry off now, eh, Belle-Ann?" he urged in breathless tremor, his eyes afire with the quest that trumpeted in his heart.
Throughout this impassioned discourse Belle-Ann had covertly maneuvered inch by inch toward the cabin. But Orlick had hedged in front, and they now stood scarce twenty feet from the wagon-bed.
His words stirred her to a resentment that at first suffused her neck and face with a flood of crimson indignation; a humiliation that ebbed slowly away before the chill of a fear that now crept into her countenance, leaving her sweet, bowed lips a trifle pallid.
"What ails yo', Belle-Ann—don't yo' 'low t' go?" he blurted out fiercely.
She pointed toward the wagon-bed. In his voice she had sensed a note that boded ill.
"Pick up yore money, Orlick; yo' mought need hit," she advised with calm dignity, while he stooped and gathered up the bills in a flurry of haste, stuffing them in a tangled mass into his pocket. When he turned about Belle-Ann was walking leisurely, but directly toward the cabin. He was at her side in a trice.
He kept pace with her, dinning into her ears an avalanche of torrid appeals, urging her to flee with him. To his onslaught of frantic words she maintained a stoic silence.
This apparent indifference seemed to enrage him beyond all self-restraint. At a point near the open door of the kitchen, he suddenly grasped her wrist and pulled her toward him. With a dexterous turn she put her back to him, twisting her arm so a cry of pain rose to her throat, though she closed her teeth hard upon it.
He held on, and she felt the wheeze of his hot, fierce breath beating against her shoulder.
She could not alter her position without throwing herself face to face with him, so she leaned outward, and then slowly turned her head and their eyes met; and in that instant Orlick loosened his grip as though a hot bar had been laid across his two hands.