With deftness she whisked the triangle of flaky pastry onto the plate and extended it toward her guest.
Its warm, insidious perfume was too much for Elisha.
He had taken only an introductory mouthful, however, when the door parted a crack and Eleazer crept cautiously through the opening.
For a moment he stood transfixed, viewing the scene with amazement; then he burst out in a torrent of reproach.
"'Lish Winslow, what on earth are you doin'? Here I've been waitin' outside in the wind, ketchin' my death of cold an' worryin' lest you was dead--hearin' neither word nor sign of you--an' you settin' here by the stove rockin' an' eatin' pie! What do you think you come for, anyhow?"
"I know, Eleazer, I know," Elisha stammered, ducking his head before the accusing finger of his colleague. "It may, mebbe, seem queer to you. I just hadn't got round to the business in hand, that's all. I'm comin' to it."
"Comin' to it? You don't look as if you was."
"I am," protested the sheriff, cramming the turnover into his mouth and drawing his hand hurriedly across his lips. "I'm comin' to it in time. Be patient, Eleazer! Be patient, can't you?"
"I've been patient half an hour a'ready an' you ain't, apparently, even made a beginnin'."
"Yes I have, Eleazer. I've made a start. The pie's et. That's done an' over."
"But you had no right to stop an' eat. You had no business eatin' pie, anyhow. Ain't you got indigestion?"
"I--wal, yes. I do recall havin' a qualm or two of dyspepsia," Elisha owned in a conciliatory tone. "That's gone, though. I reckon the fresh air kinder scat it off. I'd clean forgot about it."
"Mebbe you'd clean forgot what you come here to do, too," derided Eleazer.
"No. Oh, no. I didn't forget that. I was just leadin' up to it in a sorter tactful way."
"There ain't no way of bein' tactful when you're arrestin' folks. You've got the thing to do an' you have to go straight to it."
A fork clattered from Marcia's shaking hand to the floor.
"Arresting folks?" she repeated, looking from one man to the other.
"Yes. Since 'Lish is so spineless at his job, I may's well tell you what we come for. He don't 'pear to have no notion of doin' so," Eleazer sneered. "Pretty kind of a sheriff he is! You'd think to see him he was at an afternoon tea."