"Perhaps," he responded surlily.
Inwardly he was abusing Malva.
"Is she pretty?" she asked with indifference.
Iakov made no reply.
"Why don't you answer? Is she better looking than I, or no?"
He looked at her in spite of himself. Her cheeks were sunburnt and plump, her lips red and tempting and now, parted in a malicious smile, showing the white even teeth, they seemed to tremble. Her bust was full and firm under a pink cotton waist that set off to advantage her trim waist and well-rounded arms. But he did not like her green and cynical eyes.
"Why do you talk like that?" he asked.
He sighed without reason and spoke in a beseeching tone, yet he wanted to speak brutally to her.
"How shall I talk?" she asked laughing.
"There you are, laughing—at what?"