Ruth had not seen him since his clash with Alfred in the door; and he had obviously avoided her.
Now she thrilled faintly. Was he in love with her?--she was not sure.
He entered without speaking and took his seat as always before the fire, broad-spread and slightly huddled in his overcoat, chin on chest, staring into the fire.
Ruth, busy baking, her arms up to the elbow in dough, made her decision swiftly. She would meet him, face him, fight him.
"Well, Joe," she said, not looking at him.
It was the first time she had called him that.
He peeped up at her, only his eyes moving, small, black-brown, and burning like a bear's.
She flashed up at him. Innocence and cunning, the schoolboy and the brute, Pan and Silenus fought, leered, and frolicked in his face.
Ruth dropped her gaze and kneaded very deliberately.
Yes ... it was so ... Now she would help him; and she could hold him. She would transmute his passion into friendship. She would bridle her bull, ride him, tame him. It was dangerous, and she loved danger. It was sport; and she loved sport. It was an adventure after the heart of a daring woman. He was a fine man, too, and fierce, warrior and orator; worth conquering and subduing to her will. His quality of a fighting male called to her. She felt the challenge and answered it with singing blood.
That laughing hidalgo who in Elizabethan days had landed from his galleon in the darks at the Haven to bring terror and romance to some Sussex maid; that Spaniard who lurked obscurely in her blood, gave her her swarthy colouring, her indolent magnificence and surprising quality, was stirring uneasily within her once again.
She lifted her eyes from the froth of yeast and looked across at him, accepting battle--if he meant battle. And he did: there was no doubt of that. He sat there, hunched, silent, breathing heavily. Then little Alice slipped down from the kitchen table on which she had been sitting at her mother's side, danced across to her friend, and climbed up on his knee. Ruth took her arms out of the bowl, white to the elbow with flour, came across to the pair, firm-faced, and deliberately removed the child.
Joe rose and went out. In the outer door he stumbled on a man half-hidden on the threshold.