"Get into kitchen," he said briefly, "can't 'ee see I'm busy?"
Already Vashti's pleasure in her purchase was beginning to fade, but she stood her ground, though wrathfully.
"You needn' think you'm the only person with secrets," she flashed: "I'd a fine thing to show 'ee here, if you'd a mind to see it—now I shall keep'n to myself."
"Woman's gear!" gibed Glasson, "you'm been buying foolishness over to market. Get the supper or I shan't have time for a bite before I go to see t' captain."
"That's all you think on," she retorted; "you and your own business."
"That's all you should think on, either," he said, pulling her towards him with a hand on the back of her neck, and kissing her on her unresponsive mouth. She stood sullenly; then, when he dropped his hand, went into the house. She heard him turn the key in the lock as she went. That night she cried hot tears of anger on to the new dress length, and next day she went across the moor and met Willie Strick on his way home to Perran-an-zenna.
That was the first of many meetings, for Willie's resentment faded away before the old charm of Vashti's presence. In spite of his handsome face, he was oddly like James. The backs of their heads were similar enough to give Vashti a little shock whenever she passed behind her husband as he sat at table, or each time that Willie lay beside her on the moor, his head on her lap. She would pull the curly rings of his hair out over her fingers, and even while she admired the glint of it, some little memory of a time when James' hair had glinted in the sun or candlelight, pricked at her—not with any feeling for him except resentment, but at first it rather spoiled her lover for her. They had to meet by stealth, but that was easy enough, as James was now on an afternoon core, and Willie on a morning one. To do the latter justice, he had tried, at the beginning, a feeble resistance to the allure that Vashti had for him, not from any scruple of conscience, but because his pleasure-loving nature shrank from anything that might lead to unpleasantness. And, careless as he seemed of his wife, James Glasson would be an ugly man to deal with if he discovered the truth. So far there had been nothing except the love-making of a limited though expressive vocabulary, and Vashti curbed him and herself for three whole weeks. She was set on possessing Willie's very soul—here, at least, was a man whom she could so work upon that he would always be hers even to the most reluctant outpost of his being. By the end of those weeks, her elusiveness, the hint of passion in her, and the steady force of her will, had enslaved Strick hopelessly: he was maddened, reckless, and timid all at once.
"Vashti, it's got to end," he said desperately, as he walked with her one evening as near to the cottage as he dared, and as he spoke he slid an arm round her waist. To his surprise, she yielded and swayed towards him so that her shoulder touched his; in the sunset light her upturned face glimmered warm and bewilderingly full of colour.
"Wait a bit, lad," she breathed. "James goes up to London church town to-morrow to see one of the managers—happen he'll be gone a week or more. . . ."
He felt her soft mouth on his cheek for a moment and his arms went round her—the next moment came a crash that seemed to split the sky, and from the outhouse leapt a whistling column of flame.