“Ay,” he said, unmoved. “All that.” He was uneasy before her. Only he was not afraid of her. There was something impenetrable about him, like his eyes, which were as bright as agate.
She towered, and drew near to him menacingly.
“You’re going out of this house, aren’t you?”—She stamped her foot in sudden madness. “This minute!”
He watched her. He knew she wanted to strike him.
“No,” he said, with suppressed emphasis. “I’ve told you, I’m stopping here.”
He was afraid of her personality, but it did not alter him. She wavered. Her small, tawny-brown eyes concentrated in a point of vivid, sightless fury, like a tiger’s. The man was wincing, but he stood his ground. Then she bethought herself. She would gather her forces.
“We’ll see whether you’re stopping here,” she said. And she turned, with a curious, frightening lifting of her eyes, and surged out of the room. The man, listening, heard her go upstairs, heard her tapping at a bedroom door, heard her saying: “Do you mind coming down a minute, boys? I want you. I’m in trouble.”
The man in the bar took off his cap and his black overcoat, and threw them on the seat behind him. His black hair was short and touched with grey at the temples. He wore a well-cut, well-fitting suit of dark grey, American in style, and a turn-down collar. He looked well-to-do, a fine, solid figure of a man. The rather rigid look of the shoulders came from his having had his collar-bone twice broken in the mines.
The little terrier of a sergeant, in dirty khaki, looked at him furtively.
“She’s your Missis?” he asked, jerking his head in the direction of the departed woman.