Still I did not answer him, feeling a certain shame, not to say disgust. Then he began to pay me some compliments on my appearance.
"Do you know you're charming, my dear, really charming!"
That stung me, and made me shudder, I don't know why, unless it was because the words gave me the sense of having been used before to other women. I turned my eyes away again.
"Don't turn away, dear. Let me see those big black eyes of yours. I adore black eyes. They always pierce me like a gimlet."
He reached forward as he spoke and drew me to him. I felt frightened and pushed him off.
"What's this?" he said, as if surprised.
But after another moment he laughed, and in the tone of a man who had had much to do with women and thought he knew how to deal with them, he said:
"Wants to be coaxed, does she? They all do, bless them!"
Saying this he pulled me closer to him, putting his arm about my waist, but once more I drew and forcibly pushed him from me.
His face darkened for an instant, and then cleared again.