and button. Do you mind how, when I passed you comin' in, I laid my hand
on yours as it rested on the dresser? That hand of yours wasn't a tiny
bit of a thing, and the fingers weren't all taperin' like a simperin'
miss from town, worked down in the mill of quality and got from graftin'
and graftin', like one of them roses from the flower-house at Mablethorpe
Hall--not fit to stand by one o' them that grew strong and sweet with no
fancy colour, in the garden o' the Book-in-Hand. Yours was a hand that
talked as much as your lips or face, as honest and white; and the palm
all pink, and strong as strong could be, and warmin' every thread in a
man's body when he touched it. Well, I touched your hand then, and you
looked at me and nodded, and went musin' into the fire again, not seemin'
to hear our gabble.

"But, you remember--don't you?--how Jobbin took to chaffin' of Lancy
Doane, and how Faddo's tongue got sharper as the time got on, and many a
nasty word was said of coast-guards and excisemen, and all that had to do
with law and gover'ment. Cuts there were at some of Laney's wild doings
in the past, and now and then they'd turn to me, saying what they thought
would set me girdin' Lancy too. But I had my own quarrel, and I wasn't to
be baited by such numskulls. And Lancy--that was a thing I couldn't
understand--he did no more than shrug his shoulder and call for more ale,
and wish them all good health and a hundred a year. I never thought he
could ha' been so patient-like. But there was a kind of little smile,
too, on his face, showin' he did some thinkin'; and I guessed he was
bidin' his time.

"I wasn't as sharp as I might ha' been, or I'd ha' seen what he was
waitin' for, with that quiet provokin' smile on his face, and his eyes
smoulderin' like. I don't know to this day whether you wanted to leave
the room when you did, though 'twas about half after ten o'clock, later