It did a curious thing to his eyes. Behind their allotment
of tan lashes they became neutralized. Straw colored.
"She's about sixteen now. Little over, I reckon."
"What's that to you?"
"Blood, Hattie. Thick."
"What thickened it, Morton--after sixteen years?"
"Used to be an artist chap down in Rio. On his uppers. One night,
according to my description of what I imagined she looked like, he drew
her. Yellow hair, I reckoned, and sure enough--"
"You're not worthy of the resemblance. It wouldn't be there if I had the
saying."
"You haven't," he said, suddenly, his teeth snapping together as if
biting off a thread.
"Nor you!" something that was the whiteness of fear lightening behind
her mask. She rose then, lifting her chair out of the path toward the
door and flinging her arm out toward it, very much after the manner of
Miss Robinson in Act II.
"You get out, Morton," she said, "before I have you put out. They're
closing the theater now. Get out!"
"Hattie," his calm enormous, "don't be hasty.
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