"Thank you." He was occupied lighting the cigarette.
"Why, when I telephoned an hour ago and gave my name, did you say you were out?"
He affected an air of forbearance.
"Because I happened to be out."
"Boyé, that's another lie."
He threw the match into the fireplace and turned his eyes on her full of a steely dislike.
"Look here, Pancha. You've bothered me a lot lately, calling me up, nagging at me about things I couldn't help. I'm not the kind of man that likes that; I'm not the kind that stands it. I've been a friend of yours and hope to stay so, but—"
She cut him off, her voice trembling with passion.
"Friend—you a friend! You who do nothing but put me off with lies—who are trying to shake me, throw me away like an old shoe!"
Her restraint was gone. With her shoulders raised and her chin thrust forward, the thing she had been, and still was—child of the lower depths, bred in its ways—was revealed to him. It made him afraid of her, seeing possibilities he had not grasped before. What he had thought to be harmless and powerless might become one more menacing element in the dangers that surrounded him. His natural caution put a check upon his anger. He tried to speak with a soothing good humor.