“Listen, you miserable hound,” he whispered. “Take me to him this moment, or I'll shake the life out of you. Did you ever know me go back from my word?”
Da Souza took up his hat with an ugly oath and yielded. The two men left the office together.
“Listen!”
The two women sat in silence, waiting for some repetition of the sound. This time there was certainly no possibility of any mistake. From the room above their heads came the feeble, quavering sobbing of an old man. Julie threw down her book and sprang up.
“Mother, I cannot bear it any longer,” she cried. “I know where the key is, and I am going into that room.”
Mrs. Da Souza's portly frame quivered with excitement.
“My child,” she pleaded, “don't Julie, do remember! Your father will know, and then—oh, I shall be frightened to death!”
“It is nothing to do with you, mother,” the girl said, “I am going.”
Mrs. Da Souza produced a capacious pocket-handkerchief, reeking with scent, and dabbed her eyes with it. From the days when she too had been like Julie, slim and pretty, she had been every hour in dread of her husband. Long ago her spirit had been broken and her independence subdued. To her friend and confidants no word save of pride and love for her husband had ever passed her lips, yet now as she watched her daughter she was conscious of a wild, passionate wish that her fate at least might be a different one. And while she mopped her eyes and looked backward, Julie disappeared.