Violet rose to the challenge. “Something! I have the entire pharmacopœia. In it is a remedy heroic but sovereign. If you’ll take it, it may maim but it will cure.”
Leilah, well entrenched, braved her. “I may not need it.”
With a rush, then, the attack began.
“That’s because you don’t know. You think you are sane and sound. Don’t you now? Yes, and you are neither. You have a high temperature complicated with nausea. The temperature is due to exposure, the nausea to indigestion. You have been exposed to Verplank and you have supped on Barouffski. You fancy you can’t be rid of the incubus. That is an hallucination which the fever has caused. You can be rid of it. You can throw it up. I have an emetic that will do the trick. It may not be tasty but I’ll warrant it will make him gag far more than you.”
At the ferocity of the assault, Leilah quailed. “Really, Violet, your language——”
But the lady was not to be denied. “Aha! You want me to be butter-fingered, don’t you? Not a bit of it. You shall have the dose whether you like it or not and here it is for you. You called this place a prison. Now who runs it? You do. And on what? Your money. Supposing you hadn’t any? Would Barouffski supply it? He would pack in a jiffy. Couldn’t you then sue for divorce? Of course you could. Then there is the emetic. Verplank has enough for you both, enough for an army. All you have to do is to hold your nose, open your mouth, give your money away and vomit Barouffski. Will you?”
It was Violet’s last shot. With it she had expected to bowl Leilah completely over. Anxiously she looked to see the result.
“Will you?” she repeated.
With manifest exaltation Leilah answered: “I had thought of it.”
Surprisedly Violet stared, wondering could all her ammunition have gone for nothing, wondering too at the almost rapt expression that had come into Leilah’s face.