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”S a cold night, out,’ he said, as if to himself.

And he laid his large, yet well-shapen workman’s hand on the top of the stove, that was polished black and smooth as velvet. She would not look at him, yet she glanced out of the corners of her eyes.

His eyes were fixed brightly on her, the pupils large and electric like those of a cat.

‘I should have picked you out among thousands,’ he said. ‘Though you’re bigger than I’d have believed. Fine flesh you’ve made.’

She was silent for some time. Then she turned in her chair upon him.

‘What do you think of yourself,’ she said, ‘coming back on me like this after over fifteen years? You don’t think I’ve not heard of you, neither, in Butte City and elsewhere?’

He was watching her with his clear, translucent, unchallenged eyes.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Chaps comes an’ goes–I’ve heard tell of you from time to time.’

She drew herself up.

‘And what lies have you heard about me?‘ she demanded superbly.

‘I dunno as I’ve heard any lies at all–‘cept as you was getting on very well, like.’

His voice ran warily and detached. Her anger stirred again in her violently. But she subdued it, because of the danger there was in him, and more, perhaps, because of the beauty of his head and his level drawn brows, which she could not bear to forfeit.

‘That’s more than I can say of you,’ she said. ‘I’ve heard more harm than good about you.’

‘Ay, I dessay,’ he said, looking in the fire. It was a long time since he had seen the furze burning, he said to himself. There was a silence, during which she watched his face.

‘Do you call yourself a man?‘ she said, more in contemptuous reproach than in anger. ‘Leave a woman as you’ve left me, you don’t care to what!–and then to turn up in this fashion, without a word to say for yourself.’

He stirred in his chair, planted his feet apart, and resting his arms on his knees, looked steadily into the fire, without answering. So near to her was his head, and the close black hair, she could scarcely refrain from starting away, as if it would bite her.

‘Do you call that the action of a man?‘ she repeated.

‘No,’ he said, reaching and poking the bits of wood into the fire with his fingers. ‘I didn’t call it anything, as I know of. It’s no good calling things by any names whatsoever, as I know of.’

She watched him in his actions. There was a longer and longer pause between each speech, though neither knew it.

‘I wonder what you think of yourself!’ she exclaimed, with vexed emphasis. ‘I wonder what sort of a fellow you take yourself to be!’ She was really perplexed as well as angry.

‘Well,’ he said, lifting his head to look at her, ‘I guess I’ll answer for my own faults, if everybody else’ll answer for theirs.’

Her heart beat fiery hot as he lifted his face to her. She breathed heavily, averting her face, almost losing her self-control.

‘And what do you take me to be?’ she cried, in real helplessness.

His face was lifted watching her, watching her soft, averted face, and the softly heaving mass of her breasts.

‘I take you,’ he said, with that laconic truthfulness which exercised such power over her, ‘to be the deuce of a fine woman–darn me if you’re not as fine a built woman as I’ve seen, handsome with it as well. I shouldn’t have expected you to put on such handsome flesh: ‘struth I shouldn’t.’

Her heart beat fiery hot, as he watched her with those bright agate eyes, fixedly.

‘Been very handsome to you, for fifteen years, my sakes!’ she replied.

He made no answer to this, but sat with his bright, quick eyes upon her.

Then he rose. She started involuntarily. But he only said, in his laconic, measured way:

‘It’s warm in here now.’

And he pulled off his overcoat, throwing it on the table. She sat as if slightly cowed, whilst he did so.

‘Them ropes has given my arms something, by Ga-ard,’ he drawled, feeling his arms with his hands.

Still she sat in her chair before him, slightly cowed.

‘You was sharp, wasn’t you, to catch me like that, eh?’ he smiled slowly. ‘By Ga-ard, you had me fixed proper, proper you had. Darn me, you fixed me up proper–proper, you did.’

He leaned forwards in his chair towards her.

‘I don’t think no worse of you for it, no, darned if I do. Fine pluck in a woman’s what I admire. That I do, indeed.’

She only gazed into the fire.

‘We fet from the start, we did. And, my word, you begin again quick the minute you see me, you did. Darn me, you was too sharp for me. A darn fine woman, puts up a darn good fight. Darn me if I could find a woman in all the darn States as could get me down like that. Wonderful fine woman you be, truth to say, at this minute.’

She only sat glowering into the fire.

‘As grand a pluck as a man could wish to find in a woman, true as I’m here,’ he said, reaching forward his hand and tentatively touching her between her full, warm breasts, quietly.

She started, and seemed to shudder. But his hand insinuated itself between her breasts, as she continued to gaze in the fire.

‘And don’t you think I’ve come back here a-begging,’ he said. ‘I’ve more than one thousand pounds to my name, I have. And a bit of a fight for a how-de-do pleases me, that it do. But that doesn’t mean as you’re going to deny as you’re my Missis….’