Part 71 (1/2)
”Not to-night!” she said, laughing. Then, pus.h.i.+ng back, she added: ”Are you through?”
”Not quite.”
He rose, took from his pocketbook two bills of a thousand dollars each, and laid them beside her plate.
”What's this for?” she asked, raising her eyes.
”For the pleasure you have given me, Miss Baxter, in permitting me to take dinner with you,” he answered, smiling.
”Just for that?” she said ironically.
”Just for that!” he repeated. He drew back toward the window. ”You see, it was not so dangerous, after all. If you will get your things now, we shall go!”
Her sense of the dramatic was struck.
”Ah, that's very clever of you!” she said, quite excited. Two thousand dollars just for the favor of dining with her! How subtly he proclaimed what she might expect in the future! The bills were horribly real, seeming to adhere to her fingers. She repeated, wildly stirred: ”Very clever!”
He came closer to her, with veiled eagerness.
”Well, what is it to be?”
She left the money on the table, answering quietly:
”You know, don't you?”
”You will--”
”No!--of course!”
He frowned impatiently.
”Think it over!”
”There's no need!”
”How much do you want? Come, tell me!” he said roughly, with a brutality from which the mask had been withdrawn.
She laughed triumphantly at the reappearance of the true Sa.s.soon.
”Ah, I would be very expensive!”
”I don't care!”
”You haven't enough!”
”What!” he cried angrily, trying to seize her wrist. ”You are fool enough to refuse? You can have anything you want. I will make you anything!”
”Sa.s.soon, it's the man!” she said scornfully.
He drew back, red with anger.