“Do? You’ll forget it!” thundered Larry. “And pretty damned quick, too!”
But Mary-Clare did not answer. There was nothing more to say. She was thinking of the birth-night and death-night of her last child.
On and on the burning thoughts rushed in Mary-Clare’s brain while she sat near Larry without seeing him. As surely as if death had taken him, he, the husband, the father of Noreen, had gone from her life. It did not seem now as if 51 anything she had said, or done, had had anything to do with it. It was like an accident that had overtaken them, killing Larry and leaving her to readjust her life alone.
“Why don’t you answer?” Larry laid a hand upon Mary-Clare’s shoulder. “Getting sleepy? Come on, then, we’ll have this out to-morrow.” He looked toward the door behind which stood Noreen’s cot and that other one beside it.
“I’ve fixed the room upstairs for you, Larry.”
The simple statement had power to accomplish all that was left to be done. There was a finality about it, and the look on Mary-Clare’s face, that convinced Larry he had come to the point of conquest or defeat.
“The devil you have!” was what he said to gain time.
For a moment he again contemplated force––the primitive male always hesitates to compromise where his codes are threatened. There was a dangerous gleam in his eyes; a ferocious curl of his lips––it would be such a simple matter and it would end for ever the nonsense that he could not tolerate.
Mary-Clare leaned back in her chair. She was so absolutely unafraid that she quelled Larry’s brute instinct and aroused in him a dread of the unknown. What would Mary-Clare do in the last struggle? Larry was not prepared to take what he recognized as a desperate chance. The familiar and obvious were deep-rooted in his nature––if, in the end, he lost with this calm, cool woman whom he could not frighten, where could he turn for certain things to which his weakness––or was it his strength––clung?
A place to come to; someone peculiarly his own; his without effort to be worthy of. Larry resorted to new tactics with Mary-Clare at this critical moment. The smile faded from his sneering lips; he leaned forward and the manner that made him valuable to Maclin fell upon him like a disguise. So startling was the change, that Mary-Clare looked at him in surprise.