"If you persist, I shall kill Frank and myself to-night."
Blake broke into a loud scornful laugh, sticking his hands in his pockets. Grantley turned towards him, smiling slightly.
"Oh, this isn't a melodrama, you know," Blake said, "and we're not to be bluffed like that. Don't be so damned absurd, Imason! On my soul, I've had enough of this business without having to listen to stuff like that!"
"Do you think it's bluff and melodrama?" Grantley asked Sibylla. "Do you think I've no real intention of doing it?"
She looked up at him intently.
"You love yourself more than the boy, and your pride more than life or happiness," she said slowly. He frowned, but heard her without interruption. "So I think you might do it," she ended.
"Sibylla!" cried Blake, leaning forward again.
A gesture from her arrested his speech. He rose slowly to his feet and stood listening.
"I may be made a fool of. I don't make a fool of myself. If I pledge myself to you to do it, you know I shall do it, Sibylla?"
"Yes, then you would do it," she agreed.