She shrank inwardly, but she did not move. His
greenish eyes were wide open in the fulness of eloquence and desire.
"You have a tongue like none I ever heard," he said impulsively. "You've
got a mind that thinks, you've got dash and can take risks. You took
risks that day on the Carillon Rapids. It was only the day before that
I'd met you by the old ford of the Sagalac, and made up to you. You
choked me off as though I was a wolf or a devil on the loose. The next
day when I saw Ingolby hand you out to the crowd from his arms, I got
nasty--I have fits like that sometimes, when I've had a little too much
liquor. I felt it more because you're the only kind of woman that could
ever get a real hold on me. It was you made me get the boys rampaging
and set the toughs moving. As you say, I can get hold of a crowd. It's
not hard--with money and drink. You can buy human nature cheap. Every
man has his price they say--and every woman too--bien sur! The thing is
to find out what is the price, and then how to buy. You can't buy
everyone in the same way, even if you use a different price. You've got
to find out how they want the price--whether it's to be handed over the
counter, so to speak, or to be kept on the window-sill, or left in a
pocket, or dropped in a path, or dug up like a potato, with a funny make-
believe that fools nobody, but just plays to the hypocrite in everyone
everywhere.
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