She shook her head and smiled. “How like you that is, Bob—to imagine that fine talking will help you. You will have to do as I say.”
“If you were a man I should call that a threat.”
“Oh, it is a threat. Don’t you understand of what?”
“No.”
“That if you make any effort to shirk the clerkship—if you don’t behave well in it, even—I shall have you arrested.”
Vickers, who had just sunk into a chair, appreciating that the conversation was likely to be a long one, sprang up. Did she then know his story? Had she recognized him from the first? He made no effort to conceal that her threat alarmed him.
“Arrested for what?” he asked.
“For stealing everything that I had in the world, Bob,” she returned almost conversationally.
Chapter IV
It was a long time since Vickers had spent a sleepless night—a night, that is, on which he had designed to slumber,—but now, in the little mahogany bed something too short for him, he tossed all night. Contempt was a sentiment he was not accustomed to inspiring, and it sat very ill upon him. Fear, dislike, and even distrust he had had occasion to deal with, but contempt he had never, to his knowledge, had to brook. His good looks and his ready tongue had gained him an easy sort of admiration from women. His great bodily strength had enabled him to insist on a certain civility even from his enemies. Indeed, he had an almost childish belief in the efficacy of physical force.