Nearer the velvet curtains, Cookie had Sacheverell on his back and was choking him, while Sacheverell, though his shoulder was pinned, was industriously trying to beat Cookie on the head with the silver chalice from which the cats had been drinking.
Mary had grabbed up some hatpins and darted forward. She hesitated whom to attack, then started for Cookie—not so much, Phil fancied, to help her husband but because Cookie's "ugly" had rankled.
Never before, not even in the trenches and foxholes, had Phil Gish seen real murder in a human face.
Now he saw it in five.
And then, very suddenly, it wasn't there at all.
The room grew very still. The black glass knife and the chalice clattered from Jack's and Sacheverell's hands. Mary's hatpins struck the floor with a faint, vibrant rattle. Juno's Buddha thudded on the Moslem prayer rug. Cookie's hands unlocked themselves and writhed back, as if ashamed even before they had a message from the brain.
Expressions unlocked too. Hate furrows softened and vanished. Lips that had writhed back from teeth moistly returned. Eyes filled with painful understanding.
Jack said, in a soft, amazed voice, "Juno, you really do love me. You don't just want to own me and shame me as a man."
Juno said, "You really do care what I think, don't you, Jack? Gosh!"
Cookie said, "I didn't realize it, Sacheverell: you partly mean what you say. It isn't all faking."