The feminine in her caught the admiration behind them and delightedly realized his confusion, the night before, at her metamorphosis from the prim little black-frocked quakeress into the radiant creature in furs and jewels and flame-coloured audacity.
“And now you’re quite sure it is me—or I—which is it?”
“I’m quite sure it’s my charming landlady who for the second time feeds the hungry wanderer. Miss Gale, Triona, makes a specialty of it.”
“Then, indeed, I’m peculiarly fortunate,” said Triona, taking a tomato sandwich. “Will you feed me again, Miss Gale?”
“As often as you like,” she laughed.
“That’s rather a rash promise to make to a professional vagabond like myself. When he has begged his way for months and months at a time, he comes to regard other people’s food as his by divine right.”
“Have you done that?” she asked.
“Much worse. You don’t keep chickens?”
“Not here.”
“That’s a good thing. I think I’m the world’s champion chicken-stealer. It’s a trick of legerdemain. You dive at a chicken, catch it by its neck, whirl it round and stick it under your jacket all in one action. The unconscious owner has only to turn his back for a second. Then, of course, you hide in a wood and have an orgy.”