She paused, and looked at his impassive face with a strange, dull curiosity as she spoke of the future, as if wondering whether she had a future or had reached the end of her life—here, at this moment, in the little plank-walled office of the malgamite works. But her courage rose steadily. It is only afar off that Death is terrible. When we actually stand in his presence, we usually hold up our heads and face him quietly enough.
“You may have other enemies,” she continued. “I know you have—men, too—but none of them will last so long as I shall, none of them is to be feared as I am—”
She stopped again in a fury, for he was obviously waiting for her to pause for mere want of breath, as if her words could be of no weight.
“If you fear anything on earth,” she said, acknowledging is one merit despite herself.
“I fear you so little,” he answered, going to the door and unlocking it, “that you may go.”
Her whip lay on the table. He picked it up and handed it to her, gravely, without a bow, without a shade of triumph or the smallest suspicion of sarcasm. There was perhaps the nucleus of a great man in Otto von Holzen, after all, for there was no smallness in his mind. He opened the door, and stood aside for her to pass out.
“It is not because you do not fear me—that you let me go,” said Mrs. Vansittart. “But—because you are afraid of Tony Cornish.”
And she went out, wondering whether the shot had told or missed.