She made a passionate gesture, and seemed about to speak, but he went on: “No, don’t say anything. I know how you feel. You’ve had your face turned his way, and you can’t look elsewhere all at once. But Time cures quick, if you’re a good healthy human being. Ingolby was the kind likely to draw a girl. He’s a six-footer and over; he spangled a lot, and he smiled pretty—comme le printemps, and was sharp enough to keep clear of women that could hurt him. That was his strongest point after all, for a little, sly sprat of a woman that’s made eyes at you and led you on, till you sent her a note in a hurry some time with some loose hot words in it, and she got what she’d wanted, will make you pay a hundred times for the goods you get. Ingolby was sharp enough to walk shy, until you came his way, and then he lost his underpinning. But last night got him in the vitals—hit him between the eyes; and his stock’s not worth ten cents in the dollar to-day. But though the pumas are out, and he’s done, and’ll never see his way out of the hole he’s in”—he laughed at his grisly joke”—it’s natural to let him down easy. You’ve looked his way; he did you a good turn at the Carillon Rapids, and you’d do one for him if you could. I’m the only one can stop the worst from happening. You want to pay your debt to him. Good. I can help you do it. I can stop the strikes on the railways and in the mills. I can stop the row at the Orange funeral. I can stop the run on his bank and the drop in his stock. I can fight the gang that’s against him—I know how. I’m the man that can bring things to pass.”
He paused with a sly, mean smile of self-approval and conceit, and his tongue licked the corners of his mouth in a way that drunkards have in the early morning when the effect of last night’s drinking has worn off. He spread out his hands with the air of a man who had unpacked his soul, but the chief characteristic of his manner was egregious belief in himself.
At first, in her desire to find a way to meet the needs of Ingolby, Fleda had listened to him with fortitude and even without revolt. But as he began to speak of women, and to refer to herself with a look of gloating which men of his breed cannot hide, her angry pulses beat hard. She did not quite know where he was leading, but she was sure he meant to say something which would vex her beyond bearing. At one moment she meant to cut short his narrative, but he prevented her, and when at last he ended, she was almost choking with agitation. It had been borne in upon her as his monologue proceeded, that she would rather die than accept anything from this man—anything of any kind. To fight him was the only thing. Nothing else could prevail in the end. His was the service of the unpenitent thief.
“And what is it you want to buy from me?” she asked evenly.
He did not notice, and he could not realize that ominous thing in her voice and face. “I want to be friends with you. I want to see you here in the woods, to meet you as you met Ingolby. I want to talk with you, to hear you talk; to learn things from you I never learned before; to—”
She interrupted him with a swift gesture. “And then—after that? What do you want at the end of it all? One cannot spend one’s time talking and wandering in the woods and teaching and learning. After that, what?”
“I have a house in Montreal,” he said evasively. “I don’t want to live there alone.” He laughed. “It’s big enough for two, and at the end it might be us two, if—”
With sharp anger, yet with coolness and dignity, she broke in on his words. “Might be us two!” she exclaimed. “I have never thought of making my home in a sewer. Do you think—but, no, it isn’t any use talking! You don’t know how to deal with man or woman. You are perverted.”
“I did not mean what you mean; I meant that I should want to marry you,” he protested. “You think the worst of me. Someone has poisoned your mind against me.”
“Everyone has poisoned my mind against you,” she returned, “and yourself most of all. I know you will try to injure Mr. Ingolby; and I know that you will try to injure me; but you will not succeed.”