"I didn't say thet I come without business, Alexander. Mebby I hain't
stated hit yit."
"Then ye'd better state hit. Ye don't seem ter be in no tormentin'
haste."
O'Keefe thought that "tormentin' haste" in his position would be fatal
and yet the streak of whimsey that ran through him brought a
paradoxical answer.
"My hearth's cold over thar. I come ter borry fire."
He was watching her as he spoke, and now that he no longer stood under
the disadvantage of comparison with Jack Halloway he was no mean figure
of a man. One could not miss the fine, if slender, power of his long
and shapely lines from broad shoulder to tapering waist. His hair
curled crisply and incorrigibly and he bore himself with a lazy sort of
grace, agile for all its indolence. Alexander could not be quite sure
whether the eyes were insolent or humble. When he had stated his
mission of "borrowing fire" he had used a quaint phrase, eloquent of a
quainter custom. It had to do with that isolated life in a land where
until recently matches were rare and when the hearth fire died one had
to go to the neighbor's house and hasten back with a flaming fagot for
its relighting.
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