“I’m going to accept the thing,” she said firmly, though she had difficulty in restraining her apprehension and excitement.
“You’re not!” he cried, advancing menacingly. “Understand, I forbid it! I’m going to be firm in this business. You’re not to accept that situation. D’you hear?”
He picked up the envelope she had been engaged upon. She knew that he had seen it before. But he pretended not to have done. She despised him for that little perfidy.
“What’s this?” he cried, snatching it up vehemently. Then he pretended to realize. “You’ve been writing to accept it?”
“Yes.”
For a moment she thought he was going to do her physical violence. Then he tore the envelope across and flung the two pieces into the fire.
“Oh, that doesn’t matter,” she said contemptuously, “that’s merely childish. I can easily write another.” (In her anger she did not remember an occasion when she had been smitten with the same kind of childishness).
It was then that he cried: “My God, Cathie, I won’t stand that! ... Out you go!”
§ 3
At the corner of the Bockley High Street her only feeling was one of nervous jubilation. The clock chimed the quarter. She remembered with a little thrill of ecstasy how on all other occasions at night when she had heard the clock chime a quarter past eleven she had been anxiously wondering what sort of a row there would be when she reached home. Now she was free. She was not returning home. She was leaving. She was free to go where she liked and do what she liked....