She was beside him and he laid his hand on her arm, gentle and persuasive. She snatched the arm away, and with a small, feeble fist struck him in the chest and gasped out an epithet of the people.
For a still moment they stood looking at one another. Both faces showed that bitterest of antagonisms—the hate of one-time lovers. She saw it in his and it increased her desperation, he in her's, and in the uprush of his anger he forgot his fear. She spoke first, her voice low, her breathing loud on the room's stillness.
"You could fool me once, but it's too late now. There's no coming over me any more with soft talk."
"Then I'll not try it. Take it from me straight. I've come to the end of my patience. I've had enough of you and your exactions."
"Oh, you needn't tell me that," she cried. "I know it, and I know why.
I know the secret of your change of heart, Mr. Boyé Mayer."
She saw the alarm in his face, the sudden arrested attention.
"What are you talking about?" he said, too startled to feign indifference.
"Oh, you thought no one was on," she cried, backing away from him, "but I was. I've been for the past month. Four hundred thousand dollars! Think of it, Boyé! You're getting on in the world. Some difference between that and an actress at the Albion."
If Pancha had still cherished a hope that she might have been mistaken, the sight of Mayer's rage would have extinguished it. He made a step toward her, hard-eyed, pale as she was.
"You're mad. That's what's the matter with you. I might have known it when you came. Now go—I don't want any lunatics here."