“A tapster! Oh, pretty, pretty little wench, you are very amusing!”
The girl wrenched her hand away.
“Master Black’erchief Dick,” she said slowly, her little face very white and grave, “will you understand please that I do not love you, I do not even like you, and I will never go anywhere with you of my own will?”
The Spaniard stepped back a pace or two. He seemed to have realized at last that she was speaking the truth, for he looked at the earnest little face in front of him with a mixture of amazement and anger.
“You do not like me?” he said, his voice losing all its music and becoming almost childish in its extreme surprise.
Anny nodded.
“No, I don’t like you. Will you please go away and leave me to my work, sir?”
Dick’s anger rose up and boiled over in a moment.
“I tell you, you shall come, you pretty little fool,” he swore. “Or——” he paused suddenly. “Is there some other man you love? Tell me, tell me!”
Anny cowered before his angry, distorted face.