She stepped into the great embrasure of the bay window and sat down on the green-covered walnut-wood chair—just as she had sat down on the first day. Her eyes looked straight ahead, not at ripe grain, but at the burning purple of furrowed earth.
Jethro touched her idle hand with the privileged tenderness of an accepted lover.
“You are a slipped thing,” he said fondly.
“Slipped?”
“Slender, then. I always fancied a woman with a trim, hard waist like yours. But I came to talk business.”
He held out the roughly torn bit of newspaper.
“Tear it up,” she said thickly.
Her head hung on her bosom and her eyes fell until the lashes rested on her flaming skin.
“Not yet.”
She put out her hand to snatch it from him, with the wicked, stealthy air of a cat after a bird. Until that shameful bit of paper was destroyed her womanhood was vulgarized.