Page:Jackson Gregory--joyous trouble maker.djvu/115

Rh forward toward the few paces between him and Steele, yielding unreservedly to the stormy gust of rage and anger within him. And then Beatrice, once more a Corliss whose habit was that of dominance, called out sharply, her arm thrown out across Embry's breast:

"Stop! I will not have this. You have come this morning in my quarrel, not your own. That can wait. Stop, I tell you."

The thing which surprised Stanton and Hurley, Wilson and Rice, Steele himself and even Beatrice Corliss, was that Embry stopped. Though his face was still white, his old, habitual air of mastery, of self-mastery above all, returned to him. His hands fell to his sides, lax. Into his eyes, just now blazing with fury, came once more quick narrow-lidded speculation. There was even a hard smile as they rested briefly upon Beatrice's flushed face.

"I beg pardon. Miss Corliss," he said evenly. "As you say, any business between Steele and myself can wait."

"Yes, at least until my business with him is done," Beatrice hurried on, instinctively tightening her grasp upon the situation. She turned from him to Steele, the vague, troubled impressions of the past few seconds gone before the tangible fact that she had to do with an interloper who had defied her. "Mr. Steele, I have sent word to you that your presence upon my property is obnoxious. Will you go peaceably or must I have you thrown off?"

She marvelled at the man anew. For, even while she spoke, the hardness had faded from his face,