But he felt that this girl was special enough to justify the effort.
The way she moved, for one thing — she was light on her feet with a sort of gliding grace that belonged to an animal rather than to a town-bred human.
Nelson had never seen a woman move that way before and he wanted to see more of it — much more of it.
She wore the conventional dark jacket and trousers and at first he took it for granted that she was Chinese. Her hair was black enough, clustered around her shoulders as though she had brought part of the night with her into the lamplight. But it was soft wavy hair and the face it framed was the wrong color, a smooth, olive tan and the wrong shape.
Vaguely Nelson had a feeling that only recently he had somewhere seen an olive face like that, finely wrought and strong and just a little arrogant — only it had been a man's face.
Her great, grave dark eyes were looking up at him provocatively. Yet there was something oddly childlike about the innocence of her red mouth, the delicate tanned planes of her face.
''I am Nsharra, white lord," she said softly, her glance tilting to meet his eyes. "I have seen you in the village before the battle."
Nelson laughed. "I haven't seen you before. Nor that wolf-dog, either. I'd remember you both."
She came a step closer.
Through the alcoholic haze that fogged his mind Nelson saw her dark eyes studying him.