Page:The Prussian officer, and other stories, Lawrence, 1914.djvu/263

 “Isn’t he?” he cried, a certain wakefulness in his voice. “Them who has anything to do wi’ him is too bad for me, I tell you.”

“Why, what are you frightened of him for?” she mocked.

She was rousing all his uncontrollable anger. He sat glowering. Every one of her sentences stirred him up like a red-hot iron. Soon it would be too much. And she was afraid herself; but she was neither conquered nor convinced.

A curious little grin of hate came on his face. He had a long score against her.

“What am I frightened of him for?” he repeated automatically. “What am I frightened of him for? Why, for you, you stray-running little bitch.”

She flushed. The insult went deep into her, right home.

“Well, if you’re so dull——” she said, lowering her eyelids, and speaking coldly, haughtily.

“If I’m so dull I’ll break your neck the first word you speak to him,” he said, tense.

“Pf!” she sneered. “Do you think I’m frightened of you?” She spoke coldly, detached.

She was frightened, for all that, white round the mouth.

His heart was getting hotter.

“You will be frightened of me, the next time you have anything to do with him,” he said.

“Do you think you’d ever be told—ha!”

Her jeering scorn made him go white-hot, molten. He knew he was incoherent, scarcely responsible for what he might do. Slowly, unseeing, he rose and went out of doors, stifled, moved to kill her.