“Take notice,” cries Mrs. Bishop shrilly, “that she requests to be left alone with him. Mr. Walker, I wish you a good-night. Madam, I wish you the same with your lover.”
“Madam and Sir, your Servant!” says the reverend gentleman. The door banged and their steps were heard descending. The hall door opened and shut. They were heard to pass along the street.
“Won’t my charming creature lay aside her reserve now?” says Walker, approaching her once more. “We’re alone in the house, and if ’twas necessary to mislead others my Mrs. Fenton can be at her ease with her faithful lover. Let me have the joy to announce at the playhouse tomorrow that we’re man and wife. There’s many a man would speak no more of marriage after your refusal and you in my hands, but I’m my lovely creature’s most devoted, and will be as ready to send for the parson tomorrow morning as I was but now.”
He made to put his arm about her gallantly but she sprang back, a pair of scissors in her hand that she caught up from the table. He laughed contemptuous:
“You don’t fright me with that toy, child. Put it down.”
She held it up.
“I’ll plunge it in my own throat if you come nearer,”—she cried—a white fury with a line of gleaming teeth showing through her white lips. A mask of hatred that struck him dumb.
Not a brave man, though a showy, he tried to temporize.— After a minute’s hesitation—
“Put it down, my girl—put it down. I won’t frighten you. You’ll hurt yourself.”
She said no more, but stood rigid. A moment and Macheath flung out his arm suddenly to catch the weapon from her. She sprang aside, and he tripped his foot on the claw of the table and sprawled over it. Like lightning she rushed to the window and flung up the sash.