Page:O Genteel Lady! (1926).pdf/112

 She turned her head away from him and her body drooped wearily. 'What bond?'

He said defiantly, 'What you would consider an "evil" bond.'

' You are evil.'

'As life itself.'

She began to cry, and this sign of weakness irritated him, who had been intoxicated when she had first turned upon him and asked 'Why did you do that?'

'Weep,' he said, unsympathetically, and kicked the fire with his red leather boot.

'I want to go home!' she cried. Her voice was anticlimactic. She gathered her draperies together, wrapping herself in a mist of copper gold and fragrance. The cruel, bloody earrings hung to her breast. They faced each other for a long moment, questioning the future.

'Come,' he said, 'let's part friends'—and bent his face towards her. She leaped back in maidenly terror, and, wordless, fled from the room. In the hall she found her mink pelisse which she did not stop to put on. The door slammed after her. She plunged through snow to her knees and flung herself into the waiting hack. The pain in her ears tormented her, and sobbing a little she managed to unhook the earrings. 'Why did you do that?' she cried over and over in her mind. Wave after wave of emotion raced over her, leaving her hot and cold. With closed eyes she could believe that Jones himself still sat beside her in the hack, that in a moment she would feel him against