He laughed good-humoredly and answered,
“That’s all right. You never can hurt me by plain speaking. That’s the only kind I know. I guess we’re neither of us great at guff. Remember that I’ll expect a visit or a letter from you.”
“You’ll have to wait a long time for either,” she said without moving.
“Well, I’m a patient man, and everything comes to him who waits.”
She looked over her shoulder with a slight acid smile.
“Not everything,” she said.
“So long,” he answered, giving his hat a farewell wave at her. “I’ve enjoyed meeting you and hope we’ll soon meet again in a more friendly way. Hasta Manana, Señora!”
She wheeled so that she faced him and gave a short nod, then watched him as he walked to the door. Here he turned, bowed deeply and respectfully, and passed out into the hall, the bamboo strands of the portière clashing together behind him. A moment later she heard the bang of the street door.
She stood motionless in the middle of the room, her face deeply flushed, her eyes fixed on the swaying curtain. For the first few moments a blind excitement held her, and then from the welter of this, her thoughts separated themselves and took definite directions. Rage, triumph, bewilderment, alarm, surged to the surface of her mind. Shaken by one after another she stood rigid in the intensity of her preoccupation, not noticing the shaking of her knees or the thumping of her heart.
Her two predominant sensations were rage and triumph. The insult of the bribe burned in her—this flinging money at her as it might be flung at a cast-off mistress. It deepened her detestation of the Ryans, and at the same time gave her a sense of intimacy with them. It made them more on a par with her, drew them down from the lofty heights whence they had scornfully ignored her, to a place beside her, a place where they, as well as she, did underhand, disreputable things they did not want known.