There was a note in his voice she had not heard before, some hint of leering ribaldry in the thick laugh that for the first time stirred unease in her heart. She did not know that the desperate, wild-animal fear in him, so overpowering that everything else had been pushed to the background, had obscured certain phases of him that made her presence here such a danger as she could not yet conceive. That fear was now lifting, and the peril loomed imminent.
He put his arm along the back of the seat and grinned at her from his loose-lipped mouth.
“But o' course it ain't too late to begin now, my dearie.”
Her fearless level eyes met squarely his shifty ones and read there something she could dread without understanding, something that was an undefined sacrilege of her sweet purity. For woman-like her instinct leaped beyond reason.
“Take down your arm,” she ordered.
“Oh, I don't know, sis. I reckon your brother—”
“You're no brother of mine,” she broke in. “At most it is an accident of birth I disown. I'll have no relationship with you of any sort.”
“Is that why you're driving with me to Mexico?” he jeered.
“I made a mistake in trying to save you. If it were to do over again I should not lift a hand.”
“You wouldn't, eh?”