They were filled with astonishment at first, then indignation and gathering anger, for this girl of the South had a temper.
"How dare you touch me?"
Roderic made a mute appeal, this time with both hands—while she was talking with gathering emphasis, and really allowing him no opportunity to open with an explanation, he was thus going through a series of remarkable gesticulations that would have certainly amused an outside spectator could he have seen them.
Even Georgia became conscious that the strange sailor man was endeavoring to prove his devotion—he clasped his hands and wrung them, he held out his arms, entreatingly, he pressed one hand over his heart as he sank on his knee, holding the other as might a princely beggar soliciting alms.
All of which at length aroused her feminine curiosity, and she ceased scolding him for his apparent impudence, to demand wonderingly:
"Are you mute—have you lost your tongue—why don't you answer and tell me who are you and what in the name of the Virgin do you mean by such operatic gestures?"
His chance had come at last.
"I want—you!" he managed to say, nor was he able to recognize his own voice.
"Indeed, you are modesty personified; but I must tell you, Master Impudence, that you cannot have me, and that unless you return instantly to the quarter where you belong I shall signal to the cabin and summon assistance. Instantly, do you understand, sirrah?" and she emphasized the command with an imperious little stamp of her foot upon the deck, that would have done credit, Roderic thought, to a queen.
"Yes, I understand," he said, his voice growing bolder as he began to use it.