“Because you don’t know what you’re punishing this child for,” I told him with all the quietness I could command. “And because you’re in no fit condition to do it.”
“You needn’t worry about my condition,” he cried 182 out—and I could see by the way he said it that he was still blind with rage. “Come here, you!” he called to Dinkie.
It was then that the fatal little bell clanged somewhere at the back of my head, the bell that rings down the curtain on all the slowly accumulated civilization the centuries may have brought to us. I not only faced my husband with a snort of scorn, but I tightened my grip on the child’s hand. I tightened my grip on his hand and backed slowly and deliberately away until I came to the door of my sewing-room. Then, still facing my husband, I opened that door and said: “Go inside, Dinkie.” I could not see the boy, but I knew that he had done as I told him. So I promptly slammed the door shut and stood there facing the gray-lipped man with the riding-quirt in his hand. He took two slow steps toward me. His chin was thrust out in a way that made me think of a fighting-cock’s beak. He had not shaved that morning, and his squared jaw looked stubbled and blue and ugly.
“You can’t pull that petticoat stuff this time,” he said in a hard and throaty tone which I had never heard from him before. “Get out of my way!”
“You will not beat that child!” And I myself 183 couldn’t have made a very pretty picture as I flung that challenge up in his teeth.
“Get out of my way,” he repeated. He did not shout it. He said it almost quietly. But I knew, even before he reached out a shaking hand to thrust me aside, that he was in deadly earnest, that nothing I could say would hold him back or turn him aside. And it was then that my eye fell on the big Colt in its stained leather holster, hanging up high over one corner of the book-cabinet, where it had been put beyond the reach of the children.
I have no memory of giving any thought to the matter. My reaction must have been both immediate and automatic. I don’t think I even intended to bunt my husband in the short-ribs the way I did, for the impact of my body half twisted him about and sent him staggering back several steps. All I know is that holster and belt came tumbling down as I sprang and caught at the Colt handle. And I was back at the door before I had even shaken the revolver free. I was back just in time to hear my husband say, rather foolishly, for the third time: “Get out of my way!”
“You stay back there!” I called, quite as foolishly, for by this time I had the Colt balanced in my hand and was pointing it directly at his body. 184
He stopped short, with a vacuous look in his eyes.
“You fool!” he said, in a sort of strangled whisper. But it was my face, and not the weapon, that he was staring at all the while.