She smiled mockingly.
"It looks as if you were," he went on, arguing with himself aloud. "For if you weren't you'd marry me, even though you didn't like me. A woman in your fix simply couldn't keep herself from it. Is THAT why you're so calm?"
"I'm not marrying anybody," said she.
"Then what are you going to do?"
"You'll see."
Once more the passionate side of his nature showed—not merely grotesque, unattractive, repellent, as in the mood of longing, but hideous. Among men Stanley Baird passed for a man of rather arrogant and violent temper, but that man who had seen him at his most violent would have been amazed. The temper men show toward men bears small resemblance either in kind or in degree to the temper of jealous passion they show toward the woman who baffles them or arouses their suspicions; and no man would recognize his most intimate man friend—or himself—when in that paroxysm. Mildred had seen this mood, gleaming at her through a mask, in General Siddall. It had made her sick with fear and repulsion. In Stanley Baird it first astounded her, then filled her with hate.
"Stanley!" she gasped.
"WHO is it?" he ground out between his teeth. And he seized her savagely.
"If you don't release me at once," said she calmly, "I shall call Mrs. Brindley, and have you put out of the house. No matter if I do owe you all that money."
"Stop!" he cried, releasing her. "You're very clever, aren't you?—turning that against me and making me powerless."