She came to him; cried at a little distance: “Oh, dearest, I—I could not meet you at the seat.”
Then she saw more clearly. She asked: “What has happened?” and stood with quivering lip recording the flutters of her heart.
George took one hand; patted it between both his. For the moment his boiling anger cooled beneath grim relish of his news. “I've pretty well killed that Chater swine,” he said.
“Mr. Chater?—you've met Mr. Chater?”
Now emotion boiled again in her turbulent George. He said: “I saw you run from him. I saw—what had he been doing?”
“Oh, Georgie!”
“Well, never mind. I'd rather not hear. I've paid him for it, whatever it was.”
“You fought? Oh, and your face—and your hand bleeding too!”
Tears stood in this ridiculous Mary's eyes. Women so often cry at the wrong moment. They should more closely study their men in the tremendous mannish crises that come to some of us. This was no moment for tears; it was an hour to be Amazon. To be hard-eyed. To count the scalps brought home by the brave—in delight to squeal over them; in pride to clap the hands and jump for joy at such big behaviour.
My Mary erred in every way. Her moistening eyes annoyed George.