"As you say, we may as well take the buttons off the foils. Consider them removed."
"So far, so good," assented Eustace, not taking his eyes off her. "Go on."
"Carambo!"
"You still remember your Spanish, I see," he said mockingly, "but we're not in South America now."
"I wish we were," she hissed savagely, bringing her beautiful, distorted face so close to his own that he felt her hot breath on his cheek. "Oh, I wish we were."
"I don't," he replied, without blenching. "You might treat me as you did Manuel----"
"No! No!" she cried, a terrified expression flitting across her face. "Not that name!--not that name here!"
"Then let us keep to the subject in hand," said Eustace politely.
If a look could have killed Gartney, he would have there and then fallen dead at the feet of the Creole, but suddenly changing her tactics, she flung herself on the sofa in a storm of tears.
"How cruel you are, oh, how cruel," she wailed, hiding her face in the cushions. "I am only a woman, you coward--only a woman."