He rose with extraordinary agility and leant over, glowering at the girl.
"You've been getting a bit too fresh lately, Lollie, and giving yourself airs! You don't try any of that grand lady stuff with me, d'ye hear?"
There was nothing suave in the colonel's manner, nothing slow or ponderous or courtly. He spoke rapidly and harshly and revealed the brute that many suspected but few knew.
"I've no more respect for women than I have for men, understand! If you ever get gay with me, I'll take your neck in my hand like that," he clenched his two fists together with a horribly suggestive motion and the frightened girl watched him, fascinated. "I'll break you as if you were a bit of china! I'll tear you as if you were a rag! You needn't think you'll ever get away from me—I'll follow you to the ends of the earth. You're paid like a queen and treated like a queen and you play straight—there was a man called 'Snow' Gregory once——"
The trembling girl was on her feet now, her face ashen white.
"I'm sorry, colonel," she faltered. "I didn't intend giving you offence. I—I——"
She was on the verge of tears when the colonel, with a quick gesture, motioned her back to the chair. His rage subsided as suddenly as it had risen.
"Now do as you're told, Lollie," he said calmly. "Get after that young fellow and don't come back to me until you've got him."
She nodded, not trusting herself to speak, and almost tiptoed from his dread presence.
At the door he stopped her.