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144 with an ease which a man would envy; but never before had he seen it turned palm up, to his knowledge; and now, because he could not speak to her, according to his plan, he studied her thoroughly for the first time.

Slender and marvelously made was that hand. The whole woman was in it, finely fashioned, delicate, made for beauty, not for use. It was all he could do to keep from exclaiming.

She made a quick step toward him, eager, uncertain:

"Pierre, I thought you had left me—that you were gone, and angry."

The hearts of men are tinder; something caught on fire in Pierre, but still he would say nothing. He was beginning to feel a cruel pleasure in his victory, but it was not without a deep sense of danger.

She had laid aside her six-gun, but she had not abandoned it. She had laid aside her anger, but she could resume it again as swiftly ts she could take up her revolver.

He exulted in the touch of victory, but it was as a man who rides a horse that paces docilely beneath him but may plunge into a fury of bucking in a moment. She was closer—very close, and somehow he knew that at his pleasure he could make her smile or tremble by speaking. Yet he would not speak. The five minutes were not yet up.

She cried with a little burst of rage: "Pierre, you are making a game of me!"

But seeing that he did not change she altered swiftly and caught his hand in both of hers. She