"
"I am not embarrassed," said Bettina.
"That is what I like," gruffly.
"I am pleased," in her mellowest velvet voice, "that you like it."
Their eyes met with a singular directness of gaze. Between them a spark
passed which was not afterwards to be extinguished, though neither
of them knew the moment of its kindling, and Mount Dunstan slightly
frowned.
"I beg pardon," he said. "You are quite right. It had a deucedly
patronising sound."
As he stood before her Betty was given her opportunity to see him as she
had not seen him before, to confront the sum total of his physique. His
red-brown eyes looked out from rather fine heavy brows, his features
were strong and clear, though ruggedly cut, his build showed weight
of bone, not of flesh, and his limbs were big and long. He would have
wielded a battle-axe with power in centuries in which men hewed their
way with them. Also it occurred to her he would have looked well in a
coat of mail. He did not look ill in his corduroys and gaiters.
"I am a self-absorbed beggar," he went on. "I had been slouching about
the place, almost driven mad by my thoughts, and when I saw you took me
for a servant my fancy was for letting the thing go on.
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