For a time he sat in a deep study of her. How different from the nervous and impressionable weakling who had just left the room; and in looking at her he felt that his eyes refused to glitter with a snake-like charm; they were dull and flat, and he drew his hand across them. "Do you know that I like you?" he said.
"Then I do not bring up an unpleasant recollection."
"No, a beautiful vision." And now he had more confidence in his eyes, for he got up and moved toward her. She slipped off the stool and stood looking at him.
"Won't you play something for me?" he asked.
"I don't want to play. I don't feel like it."
"Let your fingers dream over the keys."
"My hands aren't asleep." She moved off from him.
"You aren't afraid of me, are you?".
She looked him in the eye. "My grandmother killed a panther," she said.
He drew his hand across his eyes; he recalled what Bodney had said—about her getting through with him. In the dictionary of slang there is a word to fit him: the resources of his "gall" were boundless. "Why don't you like me?" he asked. "Am I ugly in your sight? Do I look like a villain?"