Page:The Prussian officer, and other stories, Lawrence, 1914.djvu/264

 He stood leaning against the garden fence, unable either to see or hear. Below him, far off, fumed the lights of the town. He stood still, unconscious with a black storm of rage, his face lifted to the night.

Presently, still unconscious of what he was doing, he went indoors again. She stood, a small, stubborn figure with tight-pressed lips and big, sullen, childish eyes, watching him, white with fear. He went heavily across the floor and dropped into his chair.

There was a silence.

“You’re not going to tell me everything I shall do, and everything I shan’t,” she broke out at last.

He lifted his head.

“I tell you this,” he said, low and intense. “Have anything to do with Sam Adams, and I’ll break your neck.”

She laughed, shrill and false.

“How I hate your word ‘break your neck,’&thinsp;” she said, with a grimace of the mouth. “It sounds so common and beastly. Can’t you say something else——”

There was a dead silence.

“And besides,” she said, with a queer chirrup of mocking laughter, “what do you know about anything? He sent me an amethyst brooch and a pair of pearl ear-rings.”

“He what?” said Whiston, in a suddenly normal voice. His eyes were fixed on her.

“Sent me a pair of pearl ear-rings, and an amethyst brooch,” she repeated, mechanically, pale to the lips.