Fairfax began to look about in alarm. The noise of the conflict was sure to attract the attention of the servants. He began backing toward the doorway. Suddenly Harvey changed his fruitless tactics. He drove the toe of his shoe squarely against the shinbone of the big man. With a roar of rage Fairfax hurled himself upon the panting foe.
“I’ll smash your head, you little devil,” he roared, and struck out viciously with one of his huge fists.
The blow landed squarely on Harvey’s eye. He fell in a heap several feet away. Half-dazed, he tried to get to his feet. The big man, all the brute in him aroused, sprang forward and drove another savage blow into the bleak, white face of the little one. Again he struck. Then he lifted Harvey bodily from the floor and 91 held him up against the wall, his big hand on his throat.
“How do you like it?” he snarled, slapping the helpless, half-conscious man in the face with his open hand—loud, stinging blows that almost knocked the head off the shoulders. “Will you agree to my proposition now?”
From Harvey’s broken lips oozed a strangled—
“No!”
Fairfax struck again and then let him slide to the floor.
“You damned little coward!” he grated. “To kick a man like that!”
He rushed from the room, grabbed his hat and coat in the hall, and was out of the house like a whirlwind.
The whir of a motor came vaguely, indistinctly to Harvey’s ears. He was lying close to the window. As if in a dream he lifted himself feebly to his knees and looked out of the window, not knowing exactly what he did nor why he did it.