"Now, listen to me!"
Joan broke his grasp with little or no effort.
"Silly boy!" she said. "Do you really want to come in and visit a while before you say good night?"
Her look was false with a winning softness. Fowey stammered.
"You—you know—"
"Then come along!" she said, with a laugh; and turning fled lightly before him up the darkened stairway.
She had opened the door to the tiny private hallway of the flat when he overtook her, panting. She paused, with a warning finger to her lips.
"S-sh!" she warned. "Don't wake Hattie!"
He swore viciously, discountenanced; and she laughed and, leaving the door wide, went on into the small sitting-dining-room, meanly exulting in the discomfiture she had planned, knowing quite well that he had either forgotten Hattie or believed her to be spending this week-end out of Town, as before.
In the act of lighting the gas, she heard the door close and saw Fowey come, white and shaken, into the room.