Carrington sneered. He attempted to smile, but the malevolent bitterness of his passions turned the smile into a hideous smirk. He had hated Taylor at first sight; and now, with the jealousy provoked by the knowledge that Taylor had turned his eyes toward Marion Harlan, the hatred had become a lust to destroy the other.
Before Taylor could speak, Carrington stepped toward him, thrusting his face close to Taylor’s. The man was in the grip of a mighty rage that bloated his face, that made his breath come in great labored gasps. He had not meant to so boldly betray his hatred, but the violence of his passions drove him on.
He knew that Taylor was baiting him, mocking him, taunting him; that Taylor’s words to the judge and to Danforth had been uttered with the grimly humorous purpose of arousing the men to some unwise and precipitate action; he knew that Taylor was enjoying the confusion he had brought.
But Carrington had lost his self-control.
Without a word, but with a smothered imprecation that issued gutturally from between his clenched teeth, he swung a fist with bitter malignance at Taylor’s face.
The blow did not land, for Taylor, self-possessed and alert, had been expecting it. He slipped his head sidewise slightly, evading the fist by a narrow margin, and, tensed, his muscles taut, he drove his own right fist upward, heavily.
Carrington, reeling forward under the impetus of the force he had expended, ran fairly into the fist. It crashed to the point of his jaw and he was unconscious, rigid, and upright on his feet in the instant before he sagged and tumbled headlong out through the open doorway into the street.
With a bound, his face set in a mirthless grin, Taylor was after him, landing beyond him in the windrowed dust at the edge of the sidewalk, ready and willing to administer further punishment.
CHAPTER XIV—THE FACE OF A FIGHTER
Slouching in his chair, in an attitude of complete dejection, Neil Norton was glumly digesting the dregs of defeat.