“I have told you the whole of my nefarious history. . . .”
“I wouldn’t care if you had committed a murder!”
“I suppose people warn you against me.”
“Oh, yes. Everybody. I don’t listen . . . I live only for the hours I spend with you.”
“Same here,” put in Joe.
Elaine looked at him involuntarily. The little hollows in her cheeks darkened; and her eyes became liquid with bitter mirth. She laughed shakily, unaware that she was laughing; paused as if startled by the sound; and resumed in her former toneless voice: “From the first moment that I saw you in the field at Piping Rock I was lost. It was your damned insolence. In half a glance you knew you had me.”
“Insolence was your line,” said Joe laughing.
“Then it was a kind of retribution,” she said darkly.
“You looked at me as if I was something dirty in the road.”
“You knew you had me!”