“What do you mean, Mr. Rock?”
“I mean that Captain whom you’re not ashamed to be hanging after all day long. Oh, I know about you. I heard how you was found holding him in your arms, the first day that you met him by the tower yonder, after you’d been flirting with him like any street girl, till you brought him to break his leg. Yes, holding him in those arms of yours—nothing less.”
“Oh! how dare you! How dare you!” she murmured, for no other words would come to her.
“Dare? I dare anything. You’ve worked me up to that, my beauty. Now I dare ask you when you’ll let me make an honest woman of you, if it isn’t too late.”
By this time Joan was positively speechless, so great were the rage and loathing with which this man and his words filled her.
“Oh! Joan,” he went on, with a sudden change of tone, “do you forgive me if I have said sharp things, for it’s you that drives me to them with your cruelty; and I’m ready to forgive you all yours—ay! I’d bear to hear them again, for you look so beautiful when you are like that.”
“Forgive you!” gasped Joan.
But he did not seem to hear. “Let’s have done with this cat-and-dog quarrelling,” he went on; “let’s make it up and get married, the sooner the better—to-morrow if you like. You will never regret it; you’ll be happier then than with that Captain who loves Miss Levinger, not you; and I, I shall be happy too—happy, happy!” And he flung his arms wide, in a kind of ecstasy.
Of all this speech only one sentence seemed to reach Joan’s understanding, at any rate at the time: “who loves Miss Levinger, not you.” Oh! was it true? Did Captain Graves really love Miss Levinger as she knew that Emma loved him? The man spoke certainly, as though he had knowledge. Even in the midst of her unspeakable anger, the thought pierced her like a spear and caused her face to soften and her eyes to grow troubled.
Samuel saw these signs, and misinterpreted them, thinking that her resentment was yielding beneath his entreaties. For a moment he stood searching his mind for more words, but unable to find them; then suddenly he sought to clinch the matter in another fashion, for, following the promptings of an instinct that was natural enough under the circumstances, however ill-advised it might be, suddenly he caught Joan in his long arms, and drawing her to him, kissed her twice passionately upon the face. At first Joan scarcely seemed to understand what had happened—indeed, it was not until Samuel, encouraged by his success, was about to renew his embraces, that she awoke to the situation. Then her action was prompt enough. She was a strong woman, and the emergency doubled her strength. With a quick twisting movement of her form and a push of her hands, she shook off Samuel so effectively, that in staggering back his foot slipped in the greasy soil and he fell upon his side, clutching in his hand a broad fragment from the bosom of Joan’s dress, at which he had caught to save himself.