"They won't be after me if people keep their mouths shut! What do I care who I killed? Leave me alone! I've got to study!"
Stunned, she stared stupidly down at him, for here was a new trait—or, at least, one he had not shown her. Many times she had been utterly shocked, thoroughly enraged by evidences of his abnormal selfishness, but she was unprepared for this atrocious abandonment. It aroused her to a quick anger and, snatching the book from the table, she dashed it to the floor.
"Look at me!" she cried.
He was looking at her, as he had never done. The deep-set eyes were deeper, and their pupils venomously bright. She saw the fury being mustered there, but without flinching looked straight back at him.
"Tell me why you killed that man?" she demanded.
His hands were clenched, and for the first time she began to fear her influence might be waning.
"I killed him 'cause he was in the way," he growled again.
"But are you mad to go about killing people because they're in your way? Don't you know—"
"I know all I want to know," he almost screamed at her. "I know that time's flyin', 'n' I got to study! Go out 'n' leave me. He was in the way, I tell you! It was natural to get rid of him."
He picked up the book and began to open it, but instantly she had again flung it away, saying with a degree of ferocity that made him stare in open-mouthed wonderment: