Kitabı oku: «Nora», sayfa 3

She cleared her throat. “I must go inside.”

He swept off his hat and held it to his heart. “I will count the hours until we meet again,” he said on an exaggerated sigh.

She wasn’t certain if he was serious or teasing. She made a funny sound, like a stifled laugh, and moved quickly back into the house. She felt as if she might suffocate.

Cal watched her go with a pleased smile and speculation in his silver eyes. She was going to make an interesting quarry, he thought as he put his hat back on his head and slanted it over his eyes. When he got through with her, she was going to think twice before she looked down her nose at a man again, regardless of how he smelled.

AFTER THAT, CAL BARTON seemed to be everywhere she went. He was blatantly attentive, and he looked at her with such worshipful eyes that Melly began to tease her lightly about his devotion.

She wasn’t convinced that he wasn’t playing some monumental joke on her. She didn’t respond to his displays of interest, which made them all the more obvious. He made a point of speaking to her with warm affection, regardless of whether she was alone or in company at the time. He was making his company felt, and the way he looked at her made her toes tingle. She had never been actively pursued by a man whom she felt attracted to, and she wasn’t certain that she could handle this situation. She didn’t want to become attached to Mr. Barton. But the more he pursued her, in his gentlemanly, teasing manner, the more unsettled she became.

She worried about Cal Barton so much that she couldn’t sleep at night. To make matters worse, the cowboys had come in from the roundup. The noise from the bunkhouse that night was deafening. She knew that alcohol wasn’t allowed unless the cowboys went into town. But they went into town on weekends, and when they came back, more often than not, they were audibly inebriated. Nora was used to noise in the city, but it was disturbing when she heard raised male voices close to her open window. These sounded sober, which was reassuring, but they were loud anyway.

“I won’t!” a raspy male voice asserted. “I’m damned if I will! He ain’t puttin’ me to digging postholes, with my rheumatism in such bad shape! I’ll quit first!”

“Dan, your rheumatism is awful convenient,” came the amused reply. “It only hurts when you have to work. Best not rile Barton. Remember what happened to Curtis.”

There was a pause, and Nora felt the new information about Barton sinking in with deadly meaning.

“Guess I do like it here since Barton came,” the first man said on a sigh. “He got us better pay and he made the boss replace those damned worn-out horses. Hard to work cattle on a rocking horse.”

“Sure it is. And he replaced the cook, too. I don’t mind eating in the bunkhouse these days.”

“Me, neither.” There was a chuckle. “Sort of tickles me, about Curtis. There he was, throwing his gunman reputation around, intimidating the new kids. And he drew that big pistol on Barton and got his brains half knocked out with it for his pains.”

“Barton’s no sissy with a gun. I expect he’s shot some. He was in Cuba with Teddy Roosevelt—one of them Rough Riders.”

“Well, that don’t mean he knows Teddy personally,” the other man chuckled. “Come on. We got things to do before we bunk down. Roundup will start middle of next month, more’s the pity. A cowboy’s work is never done, is it?”

Murmuring voices and jingling spurs died away into the night. Nora curled deeper into her pillow with a sense of uneasiness. She was not used to rough men, and the only guns she’d seen used were in pursuit of wild game. She knew about war, that men fought in the unsettled regions of the country and sometimes with guns. But even on her previous trips to Texas, it had never occurred to her that she might meet men who had killed other men outside of war.

It was chilling to think of Mr. Barton with a smoking pistol in his hand, and suddenly she remembered one cold look from those silver eyes in that unsmiling, lean face, and realized what a formidable adversary he might be across the barrel of a gun. But he wasn’t like that with her now. He was gentle, attentive, and he smiled at her in a way that made her heart race.

She began to look forward to their frequent chance meetings, because that smile made her feel so wonderful. She turned over abruptly, trying to force it from her thoughts. What good did it do to dream when there was no hope for a future? She had nothing to give to Cal Barton. But knowing that didn’t stop her heart from racing every time she thought about him.

IT WAS NOW the second week of her visit, and as she saw more of the enigmatic Mr. Barton, she began to understand the gossip she’d overheard that night outside her window. Watching him send the men about their chores was an education. He never raised his voice, even when he was challenged. His voice became softer in anger, in fact, and his eyes took on a glitter like sharp-edged steel in sunlight. But whenever he saw Nora, his firm mouth tugged into a smile, and he looked oblivious to everything except her.

“Nice day, Miss Marlowe,” he commented as he passed her on his way to the stable, his lean fingers holding a pair of stained work gloves. He glanced at her neat lacy little gloves. She was just pulling them off, because she and Melly had only returned from town. “How dainty you are,” he mused. “And always so fastidious.” His silver eyes wandered down her body in the high-necked middy blouse and flaring dark skirt that reached to her high button-topped shoes. The intensity of his interest was disturbing. It made her knees weak. “You make my breath catch,” he added softly.

She was drowning in his deep, soft voice, in the eyes that held hers so hungrily.

“Please, sir, this is not proper,” she faltered.

He moved closer step by step, aware that they were in a very public place in the middle of the yard. He stopped just in front of her and smiled slowly, slapping the gloves absently into the palm of one hand. “What is not proper?” he asked gently. “Is a man not allowed to tell a woman how sweet she looks in her lacy finery?”

She swallowed. She had to look up a long way to see his face. It was hard to remember that she was supposed to be a sophisticated, traveled intellectual when her heart was trying to crawl up into her throat.

“Your attentions could be…misconstrued,” she said.

He lifted an eyebrow. “By someone else? Or by you?” He reached out and traced a loose strand of her hair, making incredible sensations along her nerves. His voice dropped in pitch, softened. “I find you fascinating, Miss Marlowe. An orchid barely in bloom.”

Her lips parted. No one had ever said such things to her before. She was enthralled by his deep voice, by the look in his eyes, his presence. The odors of horse and leather and cigar smoke that clung to him were not even noticeable in her state of excitement. Helplessly her blue eyes went from his deep-set eyes to his straight nose and high cheekbones and down to the wide, thin lines of his firm mouth. The lower lip was a little thicker, almost square, as if it had been chiseled out of stone. She felt her pulse quicken as she wondered shamefully how it would feel to kiss him.

He saw that speculative look, and he smiled. “You are very quiet, Miss Marlowe. Have you no scathing comment to make about the condition of my clothes?”

“What?” She sounded, looked, dazed, as her eyes were forced back up to his by the question.

He bent toward her, so that his eyes filled the world, so that under the wide brim of his hat, she could feel his warm breath right on her lips.

“I said,” he said softly, “do you not find me offensive at such close range?”

She shook her head in a helpless little gesture. She could feel his strength, like a rock, in front of her. She wanted to lean forward and press her breasts into his chest. She wanted to drag his hard mouth down over her lips and kiss him until her knees gave way. Other, shocking, images flashed through her mind, and she gasped.

His lean hand came to her cheek and his thumb pressed suddenly, hard over her mouth, bruising the soft tissues. His glittery eyes looked straight into hers. “I know what you’re thinking,” he whispered roughly. “Shall I put it into words, or is it enough that I know?”

She was too far gone to register the words at all. His thumb played with her mouth and she let it, standing hypnotized by his gaze, his closeness. He pushed her lips against her teeth in his fervor, and she looked up into his eyes with desire plain in her own. For an instant, time ceased to exist….

She realized quite suddenly what was happening to her, and it was frightening. With a tiny sound, she jerked away from him and ran into the house without a backward glance, her lips still stinging from the tender abrasion of his thumb.

She swept into the house red-faced, met by her amused aunt.

“Mr. Barton is in pursuit again, I presume?” the older woman murmured dryly.

Nora’s eyes were very eloquent, even without her hectic flush. “He is…disturbing.”

“He is the soul of courtesy with women, but never have I seen him so attentive,” her aunt replied softly. “He is a personable young man, and very intelligent, especially about ranch management. Chester could not operate so large a property without his help. He was very somber and businesslike before, but I have to admit that he has changed since you came.” She hesitated then, as if it disturbed her to have to speak when she added, “Of course, there is no question of him becoming a serious suitor, you understand.”

Nora didn’t, at first. She frowned, slightly.

“He is a fine young man, but so far beneath you socially, Nora,” her aunt continued gently. “You must not become involved with a man in such a low social station. Your mother would never forgive me if I did not advise you thus. It is amusing that Mr. Barton finds you irresistible, but he is not suitable in any way as a contender for your hand.”

Nora was shocked. She should have realized how her aunt, as much a descendant of European royalty as her own mother, would feel about Cal Barton paying her so much attention. And they were right. A dirty cowboy was hardly a match for a socialite with a wealthy background.

“Oh, I have no interest in Mr. Barton in that respect,” she said quickly, laughing to cover her shock. “But I have noticed that the cowboys respect him. Mr. Barton has had to calm his men down every night.”

“They are high-strung,” her aunt said with a smile. “And surely you’ve become used to noise in your travels.”

“Not really,” Nora recalled as she stood by the window and gazed out over the flat horizon. “I was protected from anything really upsetting, even from the smells and sounds of camp life. And I was always among relatives of one sort or another.”

“Relatives?” her aunt asked pointedly. “And not suitors?”

Nora sighed, and a slight frown marred her lovely face. “I fear that I am…unusual in that respect. I do not encourage the advances of men, although I like them very well as friends.”

“But, my dear, you are lovely,” she said. “Surely you will want to marry one day, and have children….”

Nora’s face closed up. She turned jerkily. “Melly and I have planned to picnic by the river tomorrow.” She glanced at her aunt. “I have a…fear of rivers, but Melly says that this one is shallow and not very fearful.”

“And she is right,” Aunt Helen said, curious about the wording of Nora’s remark. “It will be pleasant for you both, and as it is near the house, it is quite safe to go there unescorted. The heat and dust are terrible this time of year, but it is cool beside the river. Except for the mosquitoes,” she added with a grimace.

Mosquitoes. Nora felt queasy.

“There, now, the mosquitoes are worst in late afternoon,” her aunt said soothingly. “Do not worry.”

Nora turned and then she knew that her mother had told Aunt Helen everything. It was almost a relief to have someone know the truth. She bit her lower lip. “It frightens me.”

Helen touched her shoulder gently. “You had a bad time of it. But you will be fine here. Do go with Melly and enjoy yourself. It will be all right, my dear, truly it will. Why, doctors are often wrong. You must always keep hope. It is God who decides our fate, not the medical profession. Not always, at least.”

“I should have remembered that. Very well,” she said after a minute, and smiled. “I suppose there are worse things than insects,” she added solemnly as she walked out of the room.

Chapter Three

MELLY HADN’T MENTIONED that the picnic was going to involve other people. It was a church picnic. And it wasn’t going to be on a river near the house; it was going to be beside a small stream. When Nora heard that, she relaxed noticeably.

Aunt Helen laughed when Melly reminded her that it was the church picnic.

“Oh, how could I have forgotten!” Helen said with a rueful glance at Nora. “My mind is not on the present. I do beg your pardon, Nora, I misled you. I know that you shall enjoy this gathering. There are several eligible and well-to-do young men among the congregation.”

“Including Mr. Langhorn,” Melly added with a strange expression on her face. “He and his son, Bruce, will probably accompany us, since it is Saturday, but perhaps he will be less…antagonistic than usual. And with luck, Bruce will behave better than he normally does.”

Nora wondered a lot about her cousin’s peculiar way of referring to Mr. Langhorn. She hoped that Melly would confide in her one day.

After Helen left to talk to the cook, the two women went outside to sit on the porch. Nora tidied the bow under her jaunty sailor collar. “Will any of the men from the ranch be going?” she asked hesitantly.

Melly grinned. “Not Mr. Barton, if that’s what you meant. He goes to Beaumont this afternoon.”

“Oh. Oh, I see.” She colored a little and lifted disappointed eyes. “Does he have family there?”

“No one knows. He never speaks of the visits except in a desultory way. He is very mysterious, our Mr. Barton.”

“Yes, so I see.”

Melly noticed Nora’s distraction and touched her arm gently. “Mama is so old-fashioned. Do not let her interfere too much. Mr. Barton is a fine man, Nora. Social status is not everything.”

“Alas, Melly,” her cousin said heavily, “for me it is. My mother is exactly like yours. None of my family would countenance Mr. Barton as a suitor for me.” She gnawed her lower lip. “Oh, why must I be so conventional? I feel like a sheep, following the herd. But it is so hard to break away from the past, to stand up to social absolutes.”

“If you love someone, that becomes imperative sometimes,” Melly said sadly.

Nora looked at her. “Does it? I cannot imagine a love strong enough to send me into battle with my peers.”

Melly didn’t reply. There was a very faraway look in her eyes.

NORA BROODED on her predicament for the rest of the day, and finally decided that she could say goodbye to Cal if she wanted to. There was nothing so unspeakable about that. She went looking for him late that afternoon when it was nearing sundown. He was in the barn with his saddlebags packed on his horse, a big bay gelding with a spirited look.

“Is that your horse?” Nora asked from the door of the barn, which was deserted momentarily except for Cal.

He glanced at her and smiled. “Yes. I call him King, because he reminds me of a man I know—one who’s just as impatient and every bit as unpleasant when he’s upset.” He didn’t add that the nickname originally belonged to his eldest brother.

“He’s very…tall.”

“So am I. I require a tall horse.” He finished his tasks with the horse and turned to move toward Nora. For once, he was cleaned up. He was freshly shaven and smelled of cologne and soap. His hair was clean, neatly parted. His clothes were like new, from his long-sleeved shirt to the neat cord trousers he wore with polished black boots. He looked very masculine, and the intensity of his gaze made her nervous. He paused just in front of her, admiring her trim figure behind the china blue bow that hung below the sailor collar of the white blouse. The bow matched her eyes.

“Shall you be gone long?” she asked, trying to sound unconcerned.

“Only over the weekend, perhaps for a day or so beyond, depending on the train schedules,” he said noncommittally. “Will you miss me?” he teased.

She grimaced. “Sir, we hardly know each other.”

“A situation which can quickly be remedied.” He bent suddenly, lifted her clear off the ground in his arms like a baby and carried her behind the open door of the barn, out of sight.

Her mouth was open to protest this shocking treatment when his lips pressed softly over it, teasing the tender flesh until it admitted him. Behind her head, she felt the muscles cord in his arm as he brought her closer so that he could advance the kiss. Her breasts flattened softly over the hard muscles of his broad chest, and she felt her heart beating against them.

Outside, she heard the wind rise, and the metallic sound of the windmill as its arms began to spin. There was a rumble up in the darkening clouds. But she was locked fast in Cal’s arms and floating blissfully in feelings she had never experienced. His mouth was warm and hard and insistent. She had no inclination to fight or protest. He must have known it, because he was gentle, almost tender with her. When he finally lifted his mouth, she was dazed, fascinated. Her wide blue eyes searched his in a silence broken only by the soft movements of the horse nearby.

His silver-gray eyes glittered as they traced her mouth and then met her shocked eyes. “You’re very docile for an adventuress,” he whispered deeply. “Do you like lying in my arms?”

She hadn’t realized that she was. He still had her clear of the floor. Her arms were around his neck, holding on, and she never wanted to move. It was a surprise to discover that it felt natural to let him kiss her.

“You’re dazed, aren’t you?” he murmured with faint, tender amusement as he studied her face. “You flatter me.”

“You must…put me down,” she faltered.

He shook his head, very slowly. “Not until I’ve kissed you again.” His lips touched hers, teased, tempted. He nibbled on her lower lip and heard her gasp. “You taste of whipping cream,” he whispered, nudging at her upper lip with the tip of his tongue. “You make me hungry, Nora, for things no gentleman should admit to a lady….”

His mouth crushed down over hers, opening it to the most intimate kiss she’d ever experienced in her life. She cried out and pushed at him, frightened not only by the intimacy of it, but by the sensations it made her feel.

He lifted his head, laughing softly as he saw her eyes. “I thought you were sophisticated,” he chided.

She colored. “Do put me down!” she murmured, struggling and flustered.

He did, holding her until she righted herself and steadied. She pushed at her disheveled hairdo and moved jerkily away from him. He had never seemed taller, more menacing, than he did then.

For himself, Cal was pleased with her reactions. She wasn’t so haughty now, and he liked very much seeing her at a disadvantage. It was going to be fun to bring the so-superior Miss Marlowe down to the level of an ordinary woman. She might even enjoy being human for a change.

He touched her nose with the tip of his finger and laughed again as she looked worriedly around them.

“No one saw us,” he said gently. “Our secret is safe.”

She chewed on her lower lip and tasted him there. Her eyes sought his, full of unvoiced fears.

“What shall I bring you from Beaumont?” he asked.

“I… I need nothing.”

His eyebrows arched. “It’s my experience that women love little presents. Come, isn’t there something your heart desires?”

She was afraid. The way he was looking at her made her knees wobbly, and his kisses had kindled something frightening inside her. She made a helpless gesture with her hands.

“No, there is…there is nothing I want. I…must go inside. Do have a safe trip,” she said.

He just looked at her, aware of new feelings, new curiosities, all of which involved the woman before him. “I shall think of you while I’m away,” he said, his voice deep and slow. “When I look up at the stars tonight, I shall imagine you looking at them, and thinking of me as well.”

She flushed. “You must not!”

“Why?” he asked reasonably, and smiled. “You have no beau. I have no sweetheart. Why should we not be interested in each other?”

“I do not want that,” she blurted out.

He cocked an eyebrow. “Because I’m a poor, dirty cowboy?” he chided. “Am I not good enough for a Marlowe of Virginia?”

She grimaced and he read the truth in her face. No, a poor cowhand would hardly be a suitable match for a wealthy woman from back East. It rankled that she should think that way, that she should be so bound by convention when she was modern and well traveled and outspoken.

She was an adventuress, she said, but she was certainly very conventional in her private life. She gave lip service to the modern ideals, but she did not practice them. She was just one more prisoner of the social conventions of her set. He was oddly disappointed in her. His mother was a frontier woman, a good and decent woman, but one who lived to please her own sense of morality, not flat rules set down by other people. He had thought at first that Nora had spirit and felt the lure of adventure, that she had come West to test her courage and challenge the unknown. But in fact, she was just another bored rich society woman who toyed with men to get her thrills. He mustn’t forget poor Greely.

“Please,” she said nervously. “I must go.”

His face was shuttered, hard. “Go, then,” he said curtly. “It would not be seemly for you to be seen with someone beneath your social station.”

She glanced at him worriedly, guiltily. But she didn’t deny it. That was what damned her in his eyes, what made him determined to show her that feelings were more important than conventions. He would, if it was the last thing he ever did. He would woo and win her as an itinerant cowboy. And when he was through, she would never judge another man by his clothes or his station in life. He would be the sword of vengeance for Greely and all the other men this spoiled young miss had hurt with her thoughtlessness.

He whirled angrily toward his horse, leaving Nora to walk slowly back toward the house with her heart in her throat. She had driven him away, and she should be sorry. But she had nothing to give him. If he thought that it was because of his station and not her own fears about her illness, then perhaps that was as well, too. Perhaps it would spare her any future wooing. The thought, which should have comforted her, was vaguely discouraging.

She had barely made it to the steps when she heard the horse’s hooves sound close by, and then quickly move away. She turned in time to see Cal riding out the gate, tall against the darkening sky, looking as violent as the storm itself.

THE CHURCH PICNIC was a surprise. Nora hadn’t expected to enjoy it, but she was having a very good time. The only fly in the ointment was, as Melly had intimated, Mr. Langhorn’s son, Bruce. The little boy was a holy terror, blond and slight and full of mischief. He’d barely arrived when he put a bullfrog down a girl’s back and spilled lemonade on the preacher’s trousers.

His dad just grinned and watched him, apparently approving his actions. Melly gave the whipcord-lean man with the dark hair and eyes a cold glare, but he ignored her. He was apparently taken with an older woman, a brunette with a plate of cake and a sweet smile.

“There he goes again, playing up to Mrs. Terrell,” Melly said irritably. “Not that I care, but she’s at least five years older than he is, and she’s got three kids of her own. She’s a widow. A rich widow,” she added in a hiss.

As if he heard, Mr. Langhorn looked at her. He lifted an eyebrow, gave her a lazy, dismissing appraisal, and picked up a piece of the widow’s cake. There was something almost spiteful about the way he looked right at Melly while he bit into it.

“Daring me to say something,” Melly muttered. “Look at him! He’s a…a blackguard, an uncivilized boor! She deserves him!”

“But the poor widow is kind,” Nora argued.

“She is a black widow,” came the terse reply. “I despise her!”

Nora was surprised at the poisonous tones from her sweet cousin Melly. It was so out of character.

“He told me that I was too young to give him what a man needed from a woman,” Melly said shockingly. She flushed. “Mama would have a fit if she knew he had spoken to me in such a way. I pretended that it was another man, my best friend’s new husband, who had broken my heart, but it wasn’t. It was…him.” She sounded miserable. Her eyes followed the tall man with the widow Terrell, and she jerked them back around with a faint groan. “My parents would never have permitted anything to come of my regard for him, because he is divorced! What shall I do? It is killing me to see them together! He says that he shall probably marry her, because Bruce needs a mother so badly.” She clenched her hands together. “I love him. But he feels nothing for me, nothing at all. He has never touched me, not even to shake my hand….”

There was a wrenching sigh, and Nora felt so sorry for her cousin that she could have cried.

“I am sorry,” she said gently. “Life has its tragedies, doesn’t it?” she added absently, thinking of Africa and the terrible changes it had brought to her life.

“Yours has been much different from mine, and certainly it has not been tragic,” her cousin argued. “You have wealth and position and you are traveled and sophisticated. You have everything.”

“Not everything,” Nora said tersely.

“You could have. Mr. Barton is sweet on you,” she teased, forgetting her own problems momentarily.

“You might marry him.”

She couldn’t forget the harsh, cold farewell she’d received from Mr. Barton. She tensed indignantly.

“Marry a cowboy!” Nora exclaimed haughtily.

Melly glared at her. “And what, pray tell, is wrong with a hardworking man? Being poor is no sin.”

“He has no ambition. He is dirty and disheveled. I find him…offensive,” she lied.

“Then why were you kissing him in the barn before he left?” Melly asked reasonably.

Nora gasped. “What do you mean?”

“I saw you from my window,” she said with a chuckle. “Don’t look so shocked, Nora, I knew you were human. He is very attractive, and when he shaves and cleans up, he would be a match for any of your European friends.”

Nora shifted uncomfortably. “He is uncivilized.”

“You should spend more time out here. If you did, you would realize that clothes and a fine education do not always make a man a gentleman,” Melly said quietly. “There are men here in Texas who have no money, but who are courageous and kind and noble, in their way.”

“Like the heroes in my dime novels?” Nora chided. “That is all fiction. I have discovered the truth since I have come West, and it is disillusioning.”

“It should not be, if you do not expect people to be perfect.”

“I certainly do not expect it of Mr. Barton. He…accosted me,” she muttered.

“He kissed you,” Melly corrected, “which is hardly the same thing. Let me tell you, many of our unattached women in church would give much to have the elusive and stoic Mr. Barton kiss them!”

Nora glared at her cousin. “I would prefer that, too. He may kiss any of them he likes, with my blessing. I have no desire to become the sweetheart of a common cowboy.”

“Or of any man, it seems,” Melly murmured with a speaking glance. “You are very reluctant to discuss marriage and a family, Nora.”

Nora wrapped her arms around her body. “I have no desire to marry.”

“Why?”

She shifted. “It is something I cannot discuss,” she said, shivering with the memory of how ill she had been. How could she subject a man, any man, to a life of illnesses that would never end? How could she have a baby, and take care of it? “I shall never marry,” Nora said bitterly.

“With the right man, you might want to.”

Nora thought of Cal Barton’s hot kisses, and her heart raced. She mustn’t remember, she mustn’t. She turned in time to see young Bruce Langhorn making a beeline for another young boy perched precariously on a rock, laughing.

“Oh, no!” Melly gasped, and before Nora could open her mouth, her cousin broke into a dead run toward the children.

She hadn’t realized what was going on until she saw the Langhorn boy reach out to push the other little boy, immaculately dressed, into the stream face-first.

“You little heathen!” the boy’s mother cried, drawing everyone’s attention to Bruce. “You shouldn’t be allowed in decent company! The child of a divorced man!” she added with pure venom as she pulled her soaked, weeping child out of the water and began to comfort him.

Langhorn heard. He got to his feet and joined his son, who looked torn between tears and embarrassment.

“I tried to stop him,” Melly said, her eyes eloquent as they looked up at the tall man.

He didn’t look at her, or seem to hear. He put his hand on Bruce’s shoulder. “He’s as good as your boy, Mrs. Sanders,” he told the flustered mother. “Of course, he does act like a little boy instead of a little statue sometimes.”

Mrs. Sanders’s red face went redder. “He hardly has a moral example to follow, Mr. Langhorn.”

Langhorn just stared at her. “I thought this was a church party, where Christian people got together to have a good time.”

The woman froze, and suddenly became aware of people staring at her, and not very approvingly.