“You brute! You beast! You—,” like a spoilt child Romany stamped. “You’re a hateful, cruel, wicked man. You can’t do it. Just you try. No one will let you. You’ll be killed first. You can’t do it to me, do you hear. I’ll kill you myself. You’ve got to leave me alone. Leave me alone. What do you think I killed him for? Because he betrayed me, didn’t I? And what are you doing to me? Betraying me, too. You look out, Bertrand Whittaker. There’s nothing I’ll stop at if I’m roused. No, not even murder.”
Whittaker shed Romany’s tantrum as a duck sheds water.
“Histrionics, baby,” he said. “You never can get far away from them, can you? Fifth-rate quotations from sixth-rate melodrama. Not that I don’t wish you meant your big threat. I do. But if you really mean to kill me, don’t shout about it. The house is listening, if I know the house. Do it on the quiet. Now run away home to your room, child, and think it over. I’ll drop in later, if I may, and get the results. Pity I haven’t the poor old diary by me and I’d mark you the passages about yourself. They’re quite thrilling. Make you out a sort of Medici, of the willow-wand variety. You should be honored.” Romany swayed. “Don’t faint, my dear, again. You do it too often. It’s becoming a vicious habit. The thing for you to do is to get to bed.” Whittaker worked her gently toward the door. “Goodnight—sleep tight—wake up—”
Romany drew away from him with a shudder. Wrapping her gown tightly about her with a pathetic little gesture of pride and courage, she flung a parting shot from the doorway.
“And don’t think you’re the only one that can tell tales out of school, Bertrand Whittaker. I’ll match you revelation for revelation if it comes to the book of revelations. You’ll have a tall lot of explaining to do to the law if I let—.”
She was in the hall, and had dropped her voice. Whittaker failed to catch a name she gave.
“Who’s that you’ll let the world know about?” he shouted.
Romany put her dust-mop head back into the room.
“Just you guess! And I hope you die of fright,” she hissed, and, turtle-wise, withdrew the head.