"Are you done now with this fool performance?"
The answer was a sob.
"Understand once for all," the cold, hard voice went on, "I am the master here. Your office as regent is one of courtesy only as my wife. My word alone is supreme. When you cease to be my wife another regent will be chosen and I do the choosing. I not only propose to do the work of disciplining the women, but it is the one kind of work to which I shall devote myself with pleasure."
"Herman!" Catherine sobbed, as if she had sunk beneath a blow.
The man laughed with brutal enjoyment.
"You'd as well know this now as later. You can be getting used to it."
Her eyes red with weeping, her proud shoulders drooped for the first time in her life, Catherine slowly walked from Wolf's office back to her room.
Barbara passed her on the stairs without a word or a glance, and hurried again to see the regent, her whole being alert with quick intelligence.
The guard had received instructions that she was the one privileged person in the colony who could enter his office at all hours, day or night, without ceremony or delay. They showed her in immediately.
"I've just heard of your order sending Norman to the work of a common farm-hand, Herman," Barbara began.