Cresswell entered the dimly lighted room. She opened her eyes. She had
expected his father. Somewhere way down in the depths of her nature the
primal tiger awoke and snarled. She was suddenly alive from hair to
finger tip. Harry Cresswell paused a second and swept her full length
with his eye--her profile, the long supple line of bosom and hip, the
little foot. Then he closed the door softly and walked slowly toward
her. She stood like stone, without a quiver; only her eye followed the
crooked line of the Cresswell blue blood on his marble forehead as she
looked down from her greater height; her hand closed almost caressingly
on a rusty poker lying on the stove nearby; and as she sensed the hot
breath of him she felt herself purring in a half heard whisper.

"I should not like--to kill you."

He looked at her long and steadily as he passed to his desk. Slowly he
lighted a cigarette, opened the great ledger, and compared the
cotton-check with it.

"Three thousand pounds," he announced in a careless tone. "Yes, that
will make about two bales of lint. It's extra cotton--say fifteen cents
a pound--one hundred fifty dollars--seventy-five dollars to you--h'm."
He took a note-book out of his pocket, pushed his hat back on his head,
and paused to relight his cigarette.

"Let's see--your rent and rations--"

"Elspeth pays no rent," she said slowly, but he did not seem to hear.

"Your rent and rations with the five years' back debt,"--he made a hasty
calculation--"will be one hundred dollars. That leaves you twenty-five