Young Denny started at the question. The uncompromising directness of the words startled him even more than had her first swift, silent coming. Involuntarily, spasmodically his arms closed until the rabbit squealed again in an ecstasy of terror.
“Why, I––I reckon to eat him!” he blurted at last, and then his face grew hotter than ever at the baldness of the answer.
It was hard to follow the change that flashed over her face as she became conscious of his blundering, clumsy embarrassment. It came too quickly for that, but the angry light faded from her eyes and her 27 lips began to curve in the faintest of quizzical smiles. She even forgot the too short skirt and gaping blouse to raise both hands toward him in coaxing coquetry.
“Please let him go,” she wheedled softly. “Please let him go––for me!”
Young Denny backed away a step from her upturned face and outstretched hands, grinning a little as he slowly shook his head. It bewildered him––puzzled him––this swift change to supplication.
“Can’t,” he refused laconically. “I––I got to have him to eat.”
His voice was calmly final and for no other reason than to learn what she would do next, because already the boy knew that the soft creature throbbing against him was to have its freedom again. No one, at least since he could remember, had ever before smiled and asked Denny Bolton to “do it––for me.” For one flashing instant he saw her eyes flare at his candid refusal; then they cleared again with that same miraculous swiftness. Once more the corners of her lips lifted pleadingly, arched with guileful, provocative sweetness.
“Please,” she begged, even more softly, “please––because I ask you to!”
Once more Young Denny shook his head.
Standing there before his dark house, still smiling vaguely at the light across the valley his fingers tentatively caressed his lean cheeks where her fingernails 28 had bit deep through the skin that day. He never remembered how it had happened––it all came too swiftly for recollection––but even before he had finished shaking his head the tempting smile had been wiped from her lips, her little face working convulsively with rage, before she sprang at him––sprang with lithe, lightning, tigerlike ferocity that sent him staggering back before her.