There were none of the heavy blue veins across the back that betoken age.
The hands fascinated him.

He stared at them, fairly pouring his gaze upon them.

They were beautiful, as the hands of a great lady should be kept, and it was all the more wonderful then that the right should have across the back of it a faint gray smudge, so tiny that only an eye like his, and a concentrated gaze like his, could have seen it.
He took four swift steps forward, seized the white hand in his and held it up.
"Madame," he said, and now his tone was as fierce as hers had ever been, "where is the rifle ?" She made no attempt to release her hand, nor did she move at all, save to lift her head.

Then her eyes, hard, defiant and ruthless, looked into his.

But his look did not flinch from hers.