"Catharine, was your husband _white_?" he asked, in a voice that
betrayed anxiety.
"I got no husban'," she replied, somewhat defiantly.
"Then--" he began, but his voice faltered.
She came and stood between him and the couch.
Something of the look of a she-panther came into her face, her
figure, her attitude. Her eyes lost their mournfulness and blazed a
black-red at him. Her whole body seemed ready to spring.
"You not touch the girl child!" she half snarled. "I not let you
touch her; she _mine_, though I have no husban'!"
"I don't want to touch her, Catharine," he said gently, trying to
pacify her. "Believe me, I don't want to touch her."
The woman's whole being changed. A thousand mother-lights gleamed
from her eyes, a thousand measures of mother-love stormed at her
heart. She stepped close, very close to him and laid her small
brown hand on his, then drawing him nearer to her said: "Yes you
_do_ want to touch her; you not speak truth when you say 'no.' You
_do_ want to touch her!" With a rapid movement she flung back the
blankets, then slipping her bare arm about him she bent his form
until he was looking straight into the child's face--a face the
living miniature of his own! His eyes, his hair, his small kindly
mouth, his fair, perfect skin.
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