He did not smile, nor, apparently, make any apology or excuse, but began talking to her, looking at the ring, and saying I know not what.

And I watched that miserable old woman's face and wondered.

There was more than one emotion shown--fierce resentment at first, then the half fear of the hound or the hound-bitch yielding to the master, and then the yielding of the heart, not touched, perhaps, for a quarter of a century.
Harlson talked.

The woman did not speak for minutes, then made some short reply, and then, a little later, there were tears in her old foxy eyes.
He rose, glared at the one or two hard-faced waiters who had ventured near him, and took upon a card something she said.

Then he came back to me as the old woman left the place.
"Queer-looking, wasn't she ?" he said.
"Decidedly," said I.