"That'll do. Don't tell any more lies."
He tried to bluster. "You'd better not strike me, Lassen; I can——"
A smack on the face, given with all my strength, caused the threat to die stillborn and also showed the stuff he was made of. He pretended that the force of it knocked him down and nothing would induce him to get up again. So the fight ended where it began, as I couldn't hit him while he lay on the ground. Regretting that the one smack had been such a poor one, I dragged him into the hall, plopped him on to the doormat, and chucked him his hat, swearing that if he stopped in Berlin, the job would be finished in workmanlike fashion. He squirmed there long enough to see that no more was coming, then opened the door, paused to curse and threaten me, and bolted.
Nessa was furious, and her first question showed that some of her anger was for me. Von Erstein's little shaft about my "advice" had gone home. "Is what that man said true? Did you advise him to ask me to marry him?" the emphasis strongly on the "advise."
I nodded; and very naturally her lip curled.
"I wouldn't have believed it possible," she exclaimed.
"He told me yesterday about things and I asked him if he had asked you. If that's advising, I advised."
"And yet you know the kind of man he is and that he has been persecuting me in this fashion?"
"But anyhow I didn't advise you to accept him."
"Jack!" she cried indignantly.