Page:'Twixt land and sea - tales (IA twixtlandseatale00conr).pdf/73

 Yet what could he have done to repress her? He needed her too much. He raised a heavy, drowsy glance for an instant, then looked down again. She insisted with shrill finality:

“Haven't you done your business, you two? Well, then”

She had the true Jacobus impudence, that old woman. Her mop of iron-grey hair was parted on the side like a man’s, raffishly, and she made as if to plunge her fork into it, as she used to do with the knitting-needle, but refrained. Her little black eyes sparkled venomously. I turned to my host at the head of the tablemenacingly as it were.

“Well, and what do you say to that, Jacobus? Am I to take it that we have done with each other?”

I had to wait a little. The answer when it came was rather unexpected, and in quite another spirit than the question.

“I certainly think we might do some business yet with those potatoes of mine, Captain. You will find that”

I cut him short.

“I've told you before that I don’t trade.”

His broad chest heaved without a sound in a noiseless sigh.

“Think it over, Captain,” he murmured, tenacious and tranquil; and I burst into a jarring laugh, remembering how he had stuck to the circus-rider womanthe depth of passion under that placid surface, which even cuts with a riding-whip (so the legend had it) could never ruffle into the semblance of a storm; something like the passion of a fish would