“A kiss for what’s in my hand.”
“A buffet—big one—a rush-ring, or a garter?”
“That tongue of yours; look and see, look and see!”
Malmain spread her fingers. The man saw a ring of gold carved in the form of a dragon, with rubies for eyes, and a collar of emeralds about its throat. Lying in the woman’s moist, fat palm, it glimmered in the slant light of the sun. Mark’s eyes glittered as he looked at it.
“I had the thing from the woman above,” quoth Malmain, jerking her thumb over her shoulder.
“A bribe?”
“Who’d bribe me? Not a woman!”
“Honest soul.”
“‘That ring looks well on your finger,’ said I. ‘I shall have it.’ ‘Never!’ said she. ‘That’s too big a word,’ said I. So I forced it off, for all her temper, and broke her finger in the doing of it.”
A transient shadow seemed to pass across the man’s face, the wraith of a ghost-wrath insensible to the world.