Part 30 (1/2)
”I have something to say to you, Jerry.”
To the girl's taut nerves it was the voice of the conqueror laying down terms of surrender and clemency. In a flash she was back in the library of the Manor, hearing Steve's cool, determined voice announce, ”I shall consider myself in a position to dictate terms to one member of the family.” If he had meant separation then, what would he mean now with her silly elopement declaration of the night before to infuriate him?
Was he about to reproach her again for that? Felice had supplied the last shred of evidence he needed when she produced the hat, if he needed more than her own statement to the brakeman to convict her. Her anger flamed. He shouldn't get a chance to indict her. To put one's opponent on the defense meant strategic advantage. Before he could speak she fended:
”You can't reproach me for last night, Steve, after--after what I saw when I came into this room. Honors are even,” flippantly.
He caught her by the shoulders and looked steadily into her angry eyes.
They met his defiantly. His voice was grave as he probed:
”After last night and--and this morning, Jerry, do you still--still want to go on with it?”
”Go on with it? Do you--you mean our comedy of marriage? Why not?
'Rather bear those ills we have than fly to others that we know not of.'
You see I have contracted Tommy's pernicious habit of borrowing from the cla.s.sics when I wish to express myself with force and distinction. Let me go!”
Courtlandt's grip on her shoulders tightened. His face was white. There was a rigidity about his jaws which should have warned her.
”Flippancy won't save you. You are to listen to me now, girl.”
”While you boast to me again as you did last night that you had not made love to another woman? Not a chance!” she twisted away from him and gained the threshold of her own room. ”Don't--don't let me keep you from your alluring--friend,” she flung back at him before she closed and locked her door on the inside with grating emphasis.
Then she listened with hands clasped tight over her heart. The anger which was so foreign to her character had been a mere flash in the pan.
Already she was sorry and humiliated and ashamed. She had maintained always that a girl who could not keep her temper, who wrangled, belonged in the quarter where shrewish women, with shawls over their heads and forlorn little babies forever under their feet, fought and brawled.
Hadn't she seen them in her childhood? And she--she who thought herself superior hadn't been much better under the skin. She could have scratched Felice's eyes out and as for Steve----
Where was he now? The living-room was portentously still. Had he gone?
Why couldn't she have listened to his explanation, have a.s.sumed a friendliness which this new, disturbing riot in her veins made impossible as a reality? Her eyes which still smarted with unshed tears traveled round the dainty, chintz-hung boudoir. In a detached way she noted that the one picture on the wall, which served as the key-note to the color scheme of the room, needed straightening. She must speak to Ming Soy----Her heart hopped to her throat, then did a tail-spin to her toes as a low, stern voice outside her room commanded:
”Open the door, Jerry.”
She stood rigid, motionless.
”Open the door!” there was an undercurrent in Courtlandt's words which seemed to paralyze her muscles. In a voice the more compelling because of its repression he threatened, ”If you don't open it at once--I'll break it in!” The shake he gave the barrier between them broke the spell which held the girl. She turned the key and flung open the door.
With a sudden fierce movement he caught her hands. She had a confused sense of flinging herself against an inflexible, determined will as she struggled to free them. She met his steady, dominant eyes.
”Steve! What--what rank melodrama! Are you qualifying for the movies?”
she essayed a nonchalant tone which to her hypercritical senses seemed horribly frightened. ”What--what do you want?”
”That door open. Nothing else--now,” Courtlandt answered as he dropped her hands and turned away.
CHAPTER XXI
”What shall we do this afternoon, Jerry?” Peggy Glamorgan asked as she, her sister and Benson sat at luncheon three hours later. The table was spread on the broad, shadowy veranda on the north side of the ranch-house. The sun beat down upon fields and white roads; insects droned lazily to the accompaniment of the faint roar of the stream swollen by the heavy rain of the night before. ”Ye G.o.ds! If here isn't Abdul the Great,” she mocked saucily as Courtlandt appeared at the door.