"Yes," he answered, rousing, "for you."
"Ah—h!" her eyes snapped under the big brim. "How do I know you only tell me that because I am here?"
Her hand, gloved in lemon kid, was near his knee and he took it meditatively, pulling back the wrist of it until she drew away and removed it herself, smiling.
"Eh?" she demanded, not quite sure if he had caught her drift, so deliberate was his mood. He took the ring out of his pocket and grasped her hand while he slid the gem over a finger. She let it rest there for a moment, studying the situation. No one was near them just then. And then she looked up right into his face leaning a little towards him. Her voice caught a little as she spoke. It was ravishing, a ring like that. For a flicker of an eyelash she was off her guard, and he caught a smoulder of extraordinary passion in her half-closed eyes.
"You like me," she twittered softly.
The sun had gone, the gray water was ruffled by a little wind, the wind of evening, and as the guns boomed on the warships in the roadstead the ensigns came down.
"You like me," she said again, bending over a little more, for his eyes were watching the ships and she could not bear it. Suddenly he put his arm across her shoulders and held her. And then he used a strange and terrible expression.
"I'd go to hell for you," he said.
She leaned back with a sigh of utter content.