Her voice shook, through its petulance; she whisked round so suddenly that her long dress caught in the little table, which fell to the ground with a crash.
Darrell had sprung to his feet with an exclamation. "By God, what brings that woman here!"
Gertrude turned and faced him.
His face was livid with passion; his prominent eyes, for once wide open, glared at her in rage and hatred.
Gertrude met his glance with eyes that glowed with a passion yet fiercer than his own.
Elements, long smouldering, had blazed forth at last. Face to face they stood; face to face, while the silent battle raged between them.
Then with a curious elation, a mighty throb of what was almost joy, Gertrude knew that she, not he, the man of whom she had once been afraid, was the stronger of the two. For one brief moment some fierce instinct in her heart rejoiced.
Phyllis, cowering in the background, Phyllis, pale as her splendid dress, shrank back, mystified, afraid. Her light soul shivered before the blast of passions in which, though she had helped to raise them, she felt herself to have no part nor lot.
Reckoned by time, the encounter of those two hostile spirits was but brief; a moment, and Darrell had dropped his eyes, and was saying in something like his own languid voice—
"To what may I ascribe this—honour?"