Page:The Whisper on the Stair by Lyon Mearson (1924).djvu/248



the little cottage on the Pomeroy estate, two people faced each other across the table; Jessica dull, defeated, tense; Teck nonchalant, the light of victory in his greenish eyes, sprawling hugely on a chair, his stumps in his pockets, his characteristic attitude, a sneer curling his lips; hard and unyielding lips.

“Thank you,” he was saying. “That should send this Morley cub about his business. I am in your debt.” He was mockingly polite, the while he held her eyes with his. She, unable to wrench her gaze away, sat there looking into his burning orbs as though he were a serpent and she a bird; the light had burned out of her eyes now; she could only look at him, tired and surrendered.

“Don’t be sarcastic, Ignace,” she replied, and her voice was like her gaze, even, monotonous, dull, without a high light or a quiver in it. “I sent him away because you ordered me to. If there is nothing else to-night, you might go away⸺”

“There is nothing else to-night, Jessica,” he said, and there was an attempt at softness in his tone, and a relaxing of the lines about his mouth. “But to-morrow⸺” he trailed off into silence, a pregnant significant silence.

“To-morrow?” she intoned. “What do you mean?”

“Don’t you know?” he asked, and the mocking light slipped into his eyes again She shook her head qui- Rh