Page:Thunder on the Left (1925).djvu/236

 She pushed her arms up inside the sleeves of his coat and caught his elbows. He remembered that cherished way of hers, unconscious appeal to old tendernesses. He looked down on the top of her head, into the warm hollow where his head had lain. Her neck's prettier than Joyce's, he thought bitterly.

"It's queer you should hate him so," she said.

"What do you mean?" He pulled his arms away.

"Oh, I don't know what I mean. Perhaps he—perhaps he is what you said."

"What, a half-wit?"

"A kind of Messiah. They come to make silly people unhappy, don't they?"

He looked at her in cold amazement and disgust. Only a few moments ago he had been afraid of her; but now, by showing her poor thoughts, she had put herself at his mercy.

"You go to bed," he said. "I'm sick of this nonsense." He gripped her shoulders roughly and pushed her toward the door.

"Please, just let me put away the sandwiches. I want to wrap them in wet napkins so they'll keep fresh."

"Forget the damn sandwiches."

"Not damn, ham sandwiches." She couldn't