“I tell you this,” he said, low and intense. “Have anything to do with Sam Adams, and I’ll break your neck.”
She laughed, shrill and false.
“How I hate your word ‘break your neck’,” she said, with a grimace of the mouth. “It sounds so common and beastly. Can’t you say something else——”
There was a dead silence.
“And besides,” she said, with a queer chirrup of mocking laughter, “what do you know about anything? He sent me an amethyst brooch and a pair of pearl ear-rings.”
“He what?” said Whiston, in a suddenly normal voice. His eyes were fixed on her.
“Sent me a pair of pearl ear-rings, and an amethyst brooch,” she repeated, mechanically, pale to the lips.
And her big, black, childish eyes watched him, fascinated, held in her spell.
He seemed to thrust his face and his eyes forward at her, as he rose slowly and came to her. She watched transfixed in terror. Her throat made a small sound, as she tried to scream.
Then, quick as lightning, the back of his hand struck her with a crash across the mouth, and she was flung back blinded against the wall. The shock shook a queer sound out of her. And then she saw him still coming on, his eyes holding her, his fist drawn back, advancing slowly. At any instant the blow might crash into her.