A pause.
"Where are your rings?"
"Upstairs."
"Go and fetch them! Blast it! I don't buy you rings to leave them upstairs."
She comes back with them on, and he takes up the slim fingers laden with jewelled bands, spreads them out on his palm, then closes his thumb and finger round her wrist, and laughs a rasping laugh.
"Did any mortal man ever see such a hand? You witch! with eyes that probe into a fellow's soul, and shame him and fear nothing!" and he tightens his grip, and she winces at his roughness. "There [with a softening of voice], did I hurt you, you poor little thing, you queer little womany? Come closer [with fierce, impatient tenderness]; put down your little old head, a head like a snipe, on my breast! There, great God, I'm very fond of you!" A tremor runs through his voice. "You queer little thing! You are no beauty, but you creep in, and I, I love every inch of you. I'd kiss the ground under your feet, I know every turn of your little body, the slope of your shoulders,—I that always liked women to have square shoulders!—the swing of your hips when you walk. Hips! ha, ha! you haven't got any, you scrap! And yet, by the Lord, I'd lick you like a dog [slower, with emphasis]! And you don't care for me! You obey me, no matter what I ask." He is holding her face against his breast, and stroking her head with clumsy touch. "You wait on me,—ay, no slave better,—and yet I can't get at you, near you; that little soul of yours is as free as if I hadn't bought you, as if I didn't own you, as if you were not my chattel, my thing to do what I please with—do you hear [with fury]—to degrade, to—to treat as I please? No, you are not afraid, you little white-faced thing; you obey because you are strong enough to endure, not because you fear me. And I know it; don't you think I don't see it! You pity me, great God! pity me,—me that could whistle any woman to heel! Yes, you pity me with all that great heart of yours because I am just a great, weak, helpless, drunken beast, a poor wreck!" And the tears jump out of his eyes, eyes that are limpid and blue and unspoiled; and he sobs out: "Kiss me! take my head in your arms! I am a brute, an infernal brute, but I'm awfully fond of you, you queer little gypsy, with your big heart and your damnable will! I! I! I who hated women like poison, who always treated them as such,—I could cry when I look at you, like a great puling boy, because your spirit is out of my grasp. Smooth my head! no other little hand in the world has such a touch as yours. I'd know it among a thousand, my poor little thing! Don't ever leave me! promise even if I go mad, promise you'll stay! Get a man to mind me, but stay, won't you? Stay!"
"I'll stay."
"Did any Christian man ever have such an atom for a wife? I believe you are a gypsy; your hair curls at the ends like a live thing, and there are red lights in its black, and your eyes have a flash in them at times and a look as if you were off in other lands! Oh, oh! get me a little brandy, quick, quick!"
Merrily twang the guitars, and the tambourines rattle as they are swung aloft by slender curving wrists. The wild cries of a Zingari dance ring out. Black eyes gleam, and brown skins shine under orange and scarlet kerchiefs. The grace of panthers and the charm of wild, untamed, natural things is revealed in every movement. Color, vivacity, dirt, and rhythm.