I was beginning to have a great contempt for him.
"Where did you get those big angel eyes from? Stole them from some picture of the Madonna, I'll swear."
By this time I had concluded that he was not worth speaking to, so I turned my head and I was looking back at the sea, when I heard him say:
"I suppose you are going to give me a kiss, you nice little woman, aren't you?"
"No."
"Oh, but you must—we are relations, you know."
"I won't."
He laughed at that, and rising from his seat, he reached over to kiss me, whereupon I drew one of my hands out of my muff and doubling my little mittened fist, I struck him in the face.
Being, as I afterwards learned, a young autocrat, much indulged by servants and generally tyrannising over them, he was surprised and angry.
"The spitfire!" he said. "Who would have believed it? The face of a nun and the temper of a devil! But you'll have to make amends for this, my lady."