“Never has a woman said so much to me before,” he said slowly, his voice soft and smooth as ever.
Anny shrugged her shoulders.
“’Tis time then one should,” she laughed. “Rest your arm, sir, and leave worrying a poor girl that has work and enough to do, now that Mistress Sue be for ever out along the beach with Big French.” She turned away.
The Spaniard was beside her in a second and his slim white fingers fastened round her wrist.
“Oh, you silly little wench,” he said with a laugh in his voice, “do you think you can turn off Dick Delfazio easily like that? Mistress, I am of some account on the Island. Is a man who kills six Preventative folk single-handed to be stayed in his heart’s desire by a little serving-maid, think you?”
“What would you do?” Anny, her big green eyes wide with apprehension, and her back against the wall, jerked out the question fearfully.
Black’erchief Dick looked at her in admiration, and, swinging her toward him, he put his arm round her waist, and Hal, passing the window at that moment, suddenly changed his mind about entering the kitchen and marched off down the garden coughing and swearing to himself.
Anny freed herself in a moment and stood with her arms akimbo.
“An you were not wounded and a customer, I should smack you across the mouth,” she said, her eyes filling with tears.
Dick laughed.