"All right! All right!" she said with hysterical passion, backing toward the door. "I've warned you now—I didn't want to fight—but I'll show you—I'll show you!"
CHAPTER XVII
A SKIRMISH
Norton's fighting blood was up, but he was too good a soldier and too good a commander to rush into battle without preparation. Cleo's mask was off at last, and he knew her too well to doubt that she would try to make good her threat. The fire of hate that had flamed in her greenish eyes was not a sudden burst of anger, it had been smoldering there for years, eating its way into the fiber of her being.
There were three courses open.
He could accept her demand, acknowledge Helen to his son, establish her in his home, throw his self-respect to the winds and sink to the woman's level. It was unthinkable! Besides, the girl would never recover from the shock. She would disappear or take her own life. He felt it with instinctive certainty. But the thing which made such a course impossible was the fact that it meant his daily degradation before the boy. He would face death without a tremor sooner than this.
He could defy Cleo and pack Helen off to Europe on the next steamer, and risk a scandal that would shake the state, overwhelm the party he was leading, disgrace him not only before his son but before the world, and set back the cause he had at heart for a generation.
It was true she might weaken when confronted with the crisis that would mean the death of her own hopes. Yet the risk was too great to act on such a possibility. Her defiance had in it all the elements of finality, and he had accepted it as final.