Сердца трех / Hearts of Three

�Lie down, and be quiet!’ he repeated harshly. �You haven’t a second to lose.’

But she had eyes only for the dead snake. Her relief was patent; but Francis was no witness to it, for he was bending again to perform the classic treatment of snake-bite.

�You dare!’ she threatened him. �It’s only a baby labarri, and its bite is harmless. I thought it was a viperine. They look alike when the labarri is small.’

The constriction of the circulation by the tourniquet pained her, and she glanced down and discovered his handkerchief knotted around her leg.

�Oh, what have you done?’

A warm blush began to suffuse her face.

�But it was only a baby labarri,’ she reproached him.

�You told me it was a viperine,’ he retorted.

She hid her face in her hands, although the pink of flush burned furiously in her ears. Yet he could have sworn, unless it were hysteria, that she was laughing; and he knew for the first time how really hard was the task he had undertaken to put the ring of another man on her finger.

So he deliberately hardened his heart against the beauty and fascination of her, and said bitterly:

�And now, I suppose some of your gentry will shoot me full of holes because I don’t know a labarri from a viperine. You might call some of the farm hands down to do it. Or maybe you’d like to take a shot at me yourself.’

But she seemed not to have heard, for she had arisen with the quick litheness to be expected of so gloriously fashioned a creature, and was stamping her foot on the sand.

�It’s asleep my foot,’ she explained with laughter unhidden this time by her hands.

�You’re acting perfectly disgracefully,’ he assured her wickedly, �when you consider that I am the murderer of your uncle.’

Thus reminded, the laughter ceased and the color receded from her face.

She made no reply, but bending, with fingers that trembled with anger she strove to unknot the handkerchief as if it were some loathsome thing.

�Better let me help,’ he suggested pleasantly.

�You beast!’ she flamed at him. �Step aside. Your shadow falls upon me.’

�Now you are delicious, charming,’ he girded, belying the desire that stirred compellingly within him to clasp her in his arms.