Page:Keeping the Peace.pdf/260

 "You have seen her—that Alice—that old sweetheart of yours?"

Edward tried to speak with great calmness and dignity.

"They are very old friends of mine," he said. "It would be preposterous for me to refuse to see them. If you were reasonable I would have told: you. But you aren't reasonable and so I didn't. Yes. I've seen them a number of times. They are going back to America Saturday and I shall see them before they go."

"Oh, no, you won't!" said Anne. "But I shall. I shall go to see them and tell them what I think of them—you brute!"

The fit was upon her and she raged unmeasurably and injuriously. She must have been heard in the street below. Fellow lodgers stopped their various activities the better to listen.

Edward pleaded with her, protested his innocence and became by turns furious, pitiful and cold with disgust. She called him the most horrible names she could think of and she was able to think of worse names for Alice.

He tried to take her in his arms and soothe her. She pounded his face with her little fists and tried to scratch his eyes. Then suddenly, shouting at the top of her lungs that she was about to throw herself in the river, she rushed from the room