"I have broken in many thoroughbreds in my time, and unless you conform pretty quickly to the rules of the game that you have forced me to play, I shall have to use horse-breaking methods with you. Do you want me to put it plainer than that?"
"Before we go any further," said Beatrix, showing a most tantalizing flash of white teeth, "don't you think you ought to tell me what your Christian name is? I can't keep on saying 'My dear Mr. Franklin,' under these unconventional circumstances. It's so formal." She knew well enough, and he knew it.
"Get up!" said Franklin, thickly, keeping his hands off her with the greatest difficulty. "Either go to your maid, or call her in. I'm through."
With a little bow, Beatrix rose. It was perfectly evident to her that Franklin was rapidly becoming dangerous and that at any moment he might let himself go. What could she do? According to her family, this man was her husband and, as such, had the right to be in her room. To scream would only make her look ridiculous, unless she intended to give herself away, and this she was not prepared to do under any circumstances. She might be able to fence with Franklin a little longer and, as a last resource, to pursue the ordinary tactics of a woman cornered and throw herself on his mercy, with tears. Humiliation,—that was the thing she hated most. And as she faced Franklin again, with these things running rapidly through her mind, she felt once more a renewed sense of admiration for his grim determination to punish. She owned to herself with perfect frankness that this odd and neurotic fight was between the two most spoiled children of her country. The sense of humor which was her saving grace gave her the power to see it in the light of something which was not without value and meaning in her life. If she had actually to fight like a wild-cat, she intended that the morning should find her as she was at that moment.
"Will you call Helene, then?" she said.
Franklin went across the room to the door of the maid's cubby-hole and rapped.
Beatrix, seized with a new idea, followed Franklin and with a touch of masterly audacity stood at his side with her hand on his arm. "Don't you think we make a charming picture of connubial felicity?"
"Don't you think we make a charming picture of connubial felicity?"
"My God!" said Franklin.