Page:Delight - de la Roche - 1926.djvu/144

 around her like a vise, his chin pressed her head against his breast. With his free hand he thrust sharply into the opening of her blouse. They set their teeth. They struggled. The decrepit sofa creaked. Her blouse was torn. Then, with cheeks crimson with anger and shame, he drew out the pink paper. With a blazing look for it and another for her, he tore envelope and letter into fragments and threw them on the floor.

"There—" he said, "there's your beastly proposal. You can have your old tailor."

A long roll of thunder shook the dark sky, rumbling far down the lake, till it became but a distant mutter. Then, in the menacing silence that followed, he repeated:

"You can have your darned old tailor."

"Oh, Jimmy, how could you use me so rough? And I've always treated you the very best I know how! You've hurt me cruel."

He did not answer.

"Oh, Jimmy, do you mean it's all over between us?"

Still he made no reply, enjoying with a boy's brutality the distress of one weaker than himself.

She put her arm across her eyes and rose, stumbling across the hall in the darkness. The rain now began to pelt on the roof and the sign outside sorrowfully to creak in the rising gale.

"I'm going," she sobbed, finding the banister. "I'm going, Jimmy."

He wanted to call her but something savage in him held him back. He remembered all she made him suffer in jealousy and longing, and he could not call her back, though already his arms ached to hold her and his heart cried out for her. But he sat with stocky body erect and arms folded while she felt her way down the stairs.