She entered. Bruce, his shirt-sleeves rolled up and his bared fore-arms grimy, sat glancing through the Express, his feet crossed on his littered desk, a black pipe hanging from one corner of his mouth. He did not look round but turned another page.
“Well, what’s the matter?” he grunted between his teeth.
“I should like a few words with you,” said Katherine.
“Eh!” His head twisted about. “Miss West!”
His feet suddenly dropped to the floor, and he stood up and laid the pipe upon his desk. For the moment he was uncertain how to receive her, but the bright, hard look in her eyes fixed his attitude.
“Certainly,” he said in a brusque, businesslike tone. He placed the atlas-bottomed chair near his own. “Be seated.”
She sat down, and he took his own chair.
“I am at your service,” he said.
Her cheeks slowly gathered a higher colour, her eyes gleamed with a pre-triumphant fire, and she looked straight into his square, rather massive face. Over Blake she had felt an infinity of regret and pain. For this man she felt only boundless hatred, and she thrilled with a vengeful, exultant joy that she was about to unmask him—that later she might crush him utterly.