"I'm ruined—do you understand?" He shook her. "I'm down and out. I'm broke; and so is Crowheart!" She winced under his tightening grip. "The smash was due when Van Lennop said the word. He's said it." He felt her start at the name and there was something like fear in her face at last. "Van Lennop," he reiterated, "Van Lennop that you've made my enemy to gratify your personal spite and jealousy." He continued through clenched teeth:
"From the beginning you've used me to further your petty ends. It's plain enough to me now, for, with all your fancied cleverness, you're transparent as a window-pane when one understands your character. You've silenced me, I admit it, and blackmailed me through my pride and ambition, but you've reached the limit. You can't do it any more. I've none left.
"You expect to cling to my coat-tails to keep yourself up. You look to my position for shelter, but let me make it clear to you that you can't hide behind my prestige and my position any longer. You human sponge! You parasite! Do you think I'm blind because I've been dumb? Go! you—degenerate! By God! you go before I kill you!"
In his insane fury he pulled her to her feet by the shoulders of her loose-cut coat where she stood looking at him uncertainly, her faded eyes set in a gray mask.
"See here, Mr. Symes, see here——" she said in a kind of vague belligerence.
Symes pushed her toward the door as Adolph Kunkel passed.
"Will you go?" Symes shouted.
She turned on the sidewalk and faced him. The gray mask wore a sneer.
"Not alone."
"Hi, Doc!" Kunkel pointed to a straight, black pillar of smoke rising at the station, and yelled in local parlance: "Look there! Your beau's come! That's the Van Lennop Special!"