The crimson flooded her face, and he watched her teeth gleam
dangerously, as if she were bracing herself for a retort. The impulse to
torment her was strong in him, and he yielded to it much as a boy might
have teased a small captive animal of the woods.

"With such a temper you ought to have been an ugly woman," he said, "but
you're so pretty I'm strongly inclined to kiss you."

"If you do, I'll strike you," she gasped.

The virgin in her showed fierce and passionate, not shy and fleeting.
That she was by instinct savagely pure, he could tell by the look of
her.

"I believe it so perfectly that I've no intention of trying," he
rejoined.

"I'm not half so pretty as my mother was," she said after a pause.

Her loyalty to the unfortunate Janet touched him to sympathy. "Don't
quarrel with me, Molly," he pleaded, "for I mean to be friends with
you."

As he uttered the words, he was conscious of a pleasant feeling of
self-approbation while his nature vibrated to the lofty impulse. This
sensation was so gratifying while it lasted that his manner assumed a
certain austerity as one who had determined to be virtuous at any cost.
Morally he was on stilts for the moment, and the sense of elevation was
as novel as it was insecure.