He pushed her away. "Now—will you go?" he cried.
His eyes were flashing. And she was trembling from head to foot.
She was gazing at him with a fascinated expression. "I understand what you meant when you warned me to go," she said. "I didn't believe it, but it was so."
"Go—I tell you!" he ordered.
"It's too late," said she. "You can't send me away now—for you have kissed me. If I'm in your power, you're in my power, too."
Moved by the same impulse both looked up the arbor toward the rear door of the house. There stood Selma Gordon, regarding them with an expression of anger as wild as the blood of the steppes that flowed in her veins. Victor, with what composure he could master, put out his hand in farewell to Jane. He had been too absorbed in the emotions raging between him and her to note Selma's expression. But Jane, the woman, had seen. As she shook hands with Victor, she said neither high nor low:
"Selma knows that I care. I told her the night of the riot."
"Good-by," said Victor in a tone she thought it wise not to dispute.
"I'll be in the woods above the park at ten tomorrow," she said in an undertone. Then to Selma, unsmilingly: "You're not interrupting. I'm going." Selma advanced. The two girls looked frank hostility into each other's eyes. Jane did not try to shake hands with her. With a nod and a forced smile of conventional friendliness upon her lips, she passed her and went through the house and into the street.
She lingered at the gate, opening and closing it in a most leisurely fashion—a significantly different exit from her furtive and ashamed entrance. Love and revolt were running high and hot in her veins. She longed openly to defy the world—her world.