Gillis studied her; a sudden venomous look in his eyes.
‘Al right,’ he said, ‘if that’s the way you feel about it, there’s no sense in going on with it. There’s plenty of other girls who’l help me, and I dare say wil make a better job of it than you. I’l make other arrangements. You’d better tel Kile you want to go back to the Follies.’
Eve felt a little chill run through her.
‘Don’t be angry, darling,’ she said quickly.
‘I’m not angry,’ he returned. ‘If you can’t carry on, then you’d better chuck it before you make a mess of it.’
‘If I went back to the Fol ies,’ she said slowly, ‘would you come and live with me again?’
‘If you go back to the Fol ies,’ Gil is said deliberately, ‘you’ve seen the last of me. I mean that, Eve.
I’l have to find some other girl to help me. I’m not going to be cluttered up with two women. If you haven’t the guts to go through with this, I’l be damned if I ever want to see you again.’
He saw the fear jump into her eyes. Long experience of similar scenes in the past made him confident of his whip-hand over her. Threats, arguments and made-up quarrels marked their lives like milestones along a dark, twisting road. He had only to threaten never to see her again for her to capitulate. The chain that bound her to him had been forged in the womb.
‘Please, Adam, don’t talk like that,’ she said, taking his hand. ‘Of course I’l go through with it.