"You're not a woman," he went on scornfully. "You're only half woman. You're other half tigress. Oh, I know you. I've been reading up on your breed, and I've met a few in my time. Lately I've been looking over some at the Zoo. And when all's said and done, I prefer the incarnate to the reincarnate." He stepped back a pace and viewed her appraisingly.
As she half-sat, half-lay there on the cushioned couch, all her lithe length stretched in beautiful outline, there was indeed a suggestion of the grace of the cat tribe at rest, long, sinuous, lazy. And to Kneedrock's obsessed vision this became more than a suggestion, more than a similarity.
"By gad," he exclaimed, "I've seen my old girl in her cage just like that, only a thousand times more beautiful! And she's safe, too! That's the best of it. She only gets what's fed to her. Pity you weren't barred up while you were a cub.
"I go there just to see her eat. She has your table manners to a dot. It's very amusing to me to see her claws come out of their silken sheaths, and clutch and tear, and her teeth rend, while her lips seem to run blood.
"Beautiful exhibition, I can tell you. Wouldn't miss it for a bag of sovereigns. 'Ah,' I say, 'there's Nina over again!' Only Nina gets 'em alive, and goes for their hearts first. That's her special titbit. Man-eater, is Nina! Nothing else satisfies her."
Nina buried her face in her arms, and her body quivered. For a little she had almost fancied him unchanged. But there was no question now. He had railed at her before. But never like this. The idea seemed to carry him away. He went on, repeating himself, growing more impassioned with each outburst.
Finally he jerked out his watch and glanced at it hurriedly.
"Haven't a minute to spare. They feed her at three—three sharp now. Winter schedule's on, you know."
But Nina didn't move. Her body had ceased to quiver. She lay as one dead. Kneedrock's tirade, reasonless, rhymeless, with its seemingly endless iteration and reiteration of ideas, phrases, words; all combining to form one great outpouring volume of contemptuous, reproachful, mad rebuke, had stunned her—deafened her.
Andrews, listening, heard the abrupt break from harangue to expressed purpose, and noted that there was, from his companion, no response. It was not his desire to disturb Nina, nor to again show himself to Kneedrock.