Page:Keeping the Peace.pdf/261

 down the long flights of stairs and out into the Street of the Saintly Fathers. It was raining hard. Of course Edward didn't believe that she would drown herself, and he knew that the very best thing for him to do was to stand pat, as the poker players say, and wait until her rage cooled and she came whimpering back; but he dared not risk the one chance in a thousand that she would do what she had threatened. So with a heavy, resentful heart he followed her. When Anne perceived that she was followed, she chose to pretend that she was being followed to be hurt. So she began to scream, not too loud, and to run.

Edward caught up with her in a few strides and seized her by the arm. "For Heaven's sake behave yourself!" he cried.

Anne screamed and fought as if she was being feloniously attacked. She tore herself loose and darted off in the direction of the river.

Nothing in the whole of creation is half so reckless as a woman when she has made up her mind to punish and humiliate a man. No law of decency or reasonableness binds her. She does not care what she says or what she reveals or what she invents if only it will hurt.

So Anne, perceiving a thick-set burgher under an umbrella, who had paused to see what the run-