“That’s a lie!” thundered Blake. “You know as well as I do!”
“What have you been doing?” asked the woman, almost indulgently.
“I’ve been trailing Binhart, and you know it! And what’s more, you know where Binhart is, now, at this moment!”
“What was it you wanted me for?” reiterated the white-faced woman, without looking at him.
Her evasions did more than anger Blake; they maddened him. For years now he had been compelled to face her obliquities, to puzzle over the enigma of her ultimate character, and he was tired of it all. He made no effort to hold his feelings in check. Even into his voice crept that grossness which before had seemed something of the body alone.
“I want to know where Binhart is!” he cried, leaning forward so that his head projected pugnaciously from his shoulders like the head of a fighting-cock.
“Then you have only wasted time in sending for me,” was the woman’s obdurate answer. Yet beneath her obduracy was some vague note of commiseration which he could not understand.
“I want that man, and I’m going to get him,” was Blake’s impassioned declaration. “And before you get out of this room you’re going to tell me where he is!”
She met his eyes, studiously, deliberately, as though it took a great effort to do so. Their glances seemed to close in and lock together.
“Jim!” said the woman, and it startled him to see that there were actual tears in her eyes. But he was determined to remain superior to any of her subterfuges. His old habit returned to him, the old habit of “pounding” a prisoner. He knew that one way to get at the meat of a nut was to smash the nut. And in all his universe there seemed only one issue and one end, and that was to find his trail and get his man. So he cut her short with his quick volley of abuse.