“Look here!” he said. He placed the glass he carried on a table, and approached the sofa on which she was seated, and stood leaning against the head of it, looking at her angrily. “You’re fond of taking that tone lately. I don’t like it. What the devil do you mean by your insinuations?”
“Need we discuss,” she said, “what is so flagrant and abominable? You know what I mean. You have given me every occasion lately for distrusting you.”
“I suppose you are jealous?” he said. “Good Lord!”
He tapped the floor irritably with his foot, and eyed her for a second or so in silence. Then he leaned suddenly towards her.
“Suppose I insist on her remaining?” he asked, his face on a level with hers. “Suppose I put my foot down? ... You’ve no right to object.”
Pamela’s expression froze as she stared bade into his angry eyes. Not at once did she grasp the magnitude of the insult he flung at her; as his meaning broke fully upon her, she whitened to the lips.
“Ah! dear heaven!” she cried, and drew bade as though he had struck her. “To think that you should say that to me,—that you should hold me so cheaply in your thoughts! How dare you?”
“Cheap!” he sneered. “Women are cheap—and ungrateful. I’ve given you everything you wanted; I’ve denied you nothing... I’ve been generous. It has been a fair exchange. If there are things you don’t like, you’ve got to put up with them. You’ve got to stand this sort of thing.” He worked himself into a rage. “You and your damned jealousy!” he shouted. “I’ve had enough of it. I can’t be decently civil to a girl but you take it in the light of a personal slight. I won’t hear any more of this tom-foolery. The girl stays. I won’t be brow-beaten in this fashion.”
“Very well,” Pamela said. Despite her quiet manner, her voice broke; she was trembling from head to foot. “In that case, it is I who will go. If I had realised three years ago the position in which you held me, I would have left you then. Although to part then would have caused me pain, it would have left untarnished my faith in you. You’ve killed that.”
He made a grab at her and caught her by the shoulder and shook her roughly.