“Y’u have said it. What’s your will to me? What I want I take. And I sure want my beautiful shrew.” His half-shuttered eyes gloated on her as he rattled off a couple more lines from the play he had mentioned.
“Kate, like the hazel-twig,
Is straight and slender, and as brown in hue
As hazel-nuts, and sweeter than the kernels.”
She let a swift glance travel anxiously to the door. “You are in a very poetical mood to-day.”
“As befits a bridegroom, my own.” He stepped lightly to the window and tapped twice on the pane. “A signal to bring the horses round. If y’u have any preparations to make, any trousseau to prepare, y’u better set that girl of yours to work.”
“I have no preparations to make.”
“Coming to me simply as y’u are? Good! We’ll lead the simple life.”
Nora, as it chanced, knocked and entered at his moment. The sight of her vivid good looks struck him for the first time. At sight of him she stopped, gazing with parted lips, a double row of pearls shining through.
He turned swiftly to the mistress. “Y’u ought not to be alone there among so many men. It wouldn’t be proper. We’ll take the girl along with us.”
“Where?” Nora’s parted lips emitted.
“To Arden, my dear.” He interrupted himself to look at his watch. “I wonder why that fellow doesn’t come with the horses. They should pass this window.”