The mine captain’s daughter glowed as rosy as a pippin, too rosy; the preacher’s spouse was an olive lady, almost swarthy. Tamsin Eva’s slender neck might have been carved from milk-ivory and she was tinted like a camellia. Ortho’s dark eyes glittered. But it was her hair that fascinated him most. The room was lit by dips lashed to decorated barrel hoops suspended from the rafters, and as Tamsin in her billowy blue dress swept and sidled under these the candlelight played tricks with her burnished copper head, flicked red and amber lights over and into it, crowned her with living gold. The black Penhale felt his heart leap; she was most lovely! Why on earth had he ever dropped her? Why?
Deep down he knew; it was because, for all her physical attraction, she wearied him utterly, seemed numbed in his presence, had not a word to say. That Trewellard wench at least had a tongue in her head and the widow had spirit; he could still almost feel his cheek tingle where she had hit him. But that queenly crown of hair! He had an over-mastering desire to pull it down and bury his face in the shining golden torrent. He would too, ecod! Dull she might have been, but that was two years ago. She’d grown since then, and so had he, and learnt a thing or two; a score of women had been at pains to teach him. He hadn’t gone far with Tamsin previously—she’d been too damned soft—but he would now. He’d stir her up. Apparently shallow women were often deep as the sea, deep enough to drown one. He’d take the risk of drowning; he fed on risks. That the girl was formally betrothed to Trevaskis did not deter him in the slightest. There was no point in the game in which he could not out-maneuver the slovenly yokel.
He waited till the heated boy went to get himself a drink, and then shouldered through the press and claimed Tamsin for the next dance, claiming her smilingly, inevitably, as though she was his private property and there had not been a moment’s break between them. The girl’s eyes went blank with dismay, she tried to decline. He didn’t seem to hear, but took her hand. She hung back weakly. There was no weakness in Ortho’s grip; he led her out in spite of herself. She couldn’t resist him, she never had been able to resist him. Fortunately for her he had never demanded much. Poor Tamsin! Two years had not matured her mentally. She had no mind to mature; she was merely a pretty chattel, the property of the strongest claimant. Ortho was stronger than Trevaskis, so he got her.