McCartney remained silent, answering her only with a smile.
"What have you come here for at this time of night?" she asked again. Her voice was more steady now and she straightened up defiantly as she spoke. "Get out of here, or I'll have a dozen men——"
He took a step towards her and raised his hand for silence.
"Cherry," he said, "there ain't any use of you an' me disagreein'. You know that just as well as me. I come here now because I want to tell you something you ought to know for your own good. You don't let me talk to you like some others. I've got to take my own way of doin' things or I won't get them done at all, see? You go back there an' sit down. I'm goin' to talk an' I want you to listen."
He waited for Cherry to go back to the couch again, but she stood motionless by the table and looked at him for some time before she spoke. She knew she could gain nothing by rousing his anger. From the look in his eyes and the tone of his voice it was quite clear that he had been drinking. If she vexed him he might resort to ugly tactics in which she would be no match for him. Her only course was the one she had followed for weeks. She must fight for time in the hope that something might occur before she would have to admit defeat.
"I shall not sit down till you do," she said, pointing to a chair beside the door.
He looked behind him and then looked at her. What he saw in her face was enough to convince him that she was in earnest, at any rate, and he turned slowly, and going to the chair, sat down, taking his hat off as he did so and putting it on the floor beside him.
"Now, then," he said, as he looked up at her.
For reply Cherry moved the lamp to one side in order that it might not obstruct her view of McCartney from where she intended to sit, and going to the couch from which she had risen only a few minutes before, sat down and waited for him to speak.
"You ask me what brings me here so late," he began. "Don't you think that's a strange question to ask me? You an' me ain't talked much together lately, but when we had our last long talk together I thought you understood it clear enough. An' I don't think you're the kind that forgets easy, either."