She lifted a quivering face of desperate appeal.
“Clyde—I—Clyde!” Her voice broke in a cry of terrible anguish as he struck her, the whole weight of his powerful body behind the smashing blow that sent her reeling across the room to fall with a sickening crash on the parquet floor.
He looked down at her callously, his crimson face twitching, his big frame shaking with passion. Then he walked slowly across the room and sat down heavily on the bed, his smouldering eyes still fixed with a look of cruel satisfaction on the prostrate little figure that lay so still. He had no compunction for what he had done. She had come to the wrong shop if she thought she was going to roughride him with any of her silly notions. He would jolly well make it clear to her tonight that he would brook no disobedience, no questioning of his habits, no thwarting of his wishes. Damned little puritan—who shrank from his embraces as if she were a ravished nun instead of a normal athletic young woman with healthy red blood in her veins. He wanted a mate in his arms not a beautiful piece of statuary whose reserve and coldness infuriated him. She was his wife—and dam’ lucky to be so. She might have been on the streets if it hadn’t been for him. If she wasn’t satisfied—well, he’d a grievance himself if it came to that. They’d been married five years, why the devil hadn’t she given him the heir he wanted? And lashing himself to greater fury he waited, making no effort to aid her until she regained consciousness. She stirred at last, moaning with pain, her slender body convulsed with terrible shuddering. Dragging herself to her feet she stood swaying giddily, her hands pressed on her throbbing temple, her heavy eyes looking listlessly about her till they rested at length on Geradine’s massive figure and into them there flashed suddenly the horror of dawning remembrance. With a little choking sound she turned and staggering a few steps fell into a chair before the dressing table, burying her head in her arms amongst the costly appointments that littered its shining surface, her shoulders shaking with hard tearless sobs.
And as Geradine had watched her insensible so did he watch her now, pitiless and unmoved. He had no use for half measures. If she had to be taught a lesson it should be at least a thorough one. He lurched to his feet and strode across the room, halting beside her with his arms folded across his broad chest, his foot beating with angry impatience against the floor. “How much longer are you going to keep me waiting?”
The harsh words jarred like a stab of actual pain and sick and faint she raised her eyes to his. One look convinced her of his determination. He meant it, oh, very well she knew he meant it! Too dazed, too broken to oppose him further she knew that she would have to obey; that, cost her what it might, she would have to dress and go with him. With a stifled gasp of pain she struggled to her feet, her head reeling, and caught at the table for support, pushing the heavy hair off her forehead and wincing as her fingers touched her injured temple.
“If you will please go I will ring for my maid,” she muttered indistinctly, choking back the hysterical sobs that rose in her throat. “I’ll go when it suits me, and you’ll ring for no maid,” he said sharply. “You’ll dress a dam’ sight quicker with me in the room. It won’t be the first time I’ve valeted you, and it won’t be the last I’m willing to bet. And I’m hanged if I’ll have that grim faced old harridan you call your maid poking her nose in where she isn’t wanted. I’m about fed up with her as it is. She’s not the kind of woman I want about you, anyhow. She’ll have to go, and the sooner the better. You can pay her her wages tomorrow and tell her to clear out by the first available boat.”
“Clyde!” The sharp cry was wrung from her. And forgetting her pain, her fear, everything but the heartless ultimatum he had launched at her she sprang towards him, clutching at him with trembling hands, her face working convulsively, pleading as she would not have stooped to plead for herself.
“Clyde, Clyde, you don’t mean it, you can’t mean it! You can’t send her away, you couldn’t be so cruel. She’s old, I’m all she’s got, it would kill her to leave me. And you promised—you promised me faithfully I might keep her. It will break her heart. Oh, Clyde, be generous. Do what I ask, just this once. If you let me keep her I’ll never oppose you again. I’ll do anything you wish—I’ll be anything you wish—”
A sneering look of triumph crossed his face as he flung her from him. “You’ll do as I wish without any bargains, my lady,” he said significantly. “You’ve had your orders and there’s an end of the matter. The thing’s finished. And might I remind you that the horses have already been waiting an hour?”
That was apparently all that mattered to him. Of less value at the moment than the pedigreed animals he prided, distress of mind, the pain and weariness of her bruised and aching body was beyond his consideration. A feeling of numbness came over her, a kind of frozen apathy that seemed to turn her into a mere automaton, and without a word she turned slowly to do his bidding. She had a curious impression that the white-faced weary-looking woman reflected in her mirror was some other than herself, that, divorced from her own body, she was watching the suffering of a total stranger. And as she dressed with mechanical haste only one thing was clear and instant with her—the consciousness of menacing eyes that followed her every movement until their burning stare became a veritable torment. But, throughout the process of her toilet he spoke only once, a characteristic remark: “Put a bit o’ colour on your face. You’re as white as a ghost.”