"You can be very fierce," he said to her. "Be gentle a little, and tell me whence you came, and what story you have."
But she would not.
"I have not come here to speak of myself," she said obstinately. "Will you take the coins, or leave them?"
"I will take them," he said; and he went to a cabinet in another room and brought out with him several shining gold pieces.
She fastened her eager eyes on them thirstily.
"Here is payment," he said to her, holding them to her.
Her eyes fastened on the money entranced; she touched it with a light, half-fearful touch, and then drew back and gazed at it amazed.
"All that—all that?" she muttered. "Is it their worth? Are you sure?"
"Quite sure," he said with a smile. He offered her in them some thirty times their value.
She paused for a moment, incredulous of her own good fortune, then darted on them as a swallow at a gnat, and took them and put them to her lips, and laughed a sweet glad laugh of triumph, and slid them in her bosom.