Deliberately leaving the Englishwoman to free herself according to her suggestion—forgetful, indeed, for the moment, that she was not altogether free—he moved to the desk and left his own automatic there beside Ekstrom's.
"Mademoiselle," he said mechanically, without looking at the girl, without power to perceive aught else in the world but the white, evil face of his enemy, "for what I am about to do, I beg you forgive me, of your charity. I can endure no more. It is too much…."
He strode past her.
She twisted in her chair, then rose, following him with wide eyes of alarm above her hands, whose bonds her teeth worried without rest.
Ekstrom had not stirred, though one flash of pure exultation had transfigured his countenance on comprehension of Lanyard's purpose: thanks to the silly scruples of this animal, one more chance for life was granted him.
Nor would the Prussian give an inch when Lanyard paused, confronting him squarely, within arm's length.
"Ekstrom," the adventurer began in a voice lacking perceptible inflection … "what is between you and me needs no recounting. You know it too well—I likewise. It is my wish and my intention to kill you with my two hands. Nothing can prevent that, not even what you count upon, my reluctance—to you incomprehensible—to commit an act of violence in the presence of a woman. But because Miss Brooke is here, because you have brought her here by force, because you are what you are and so have treated her insolently … before we come to our final accounting, you shall get down upon your knees and ask her pardon."
He saw no yielding in the eyes of the Prussian, only arrogance; and when he paused, he was answered in one phrase of the gutters of Berlin, couched in the imagery of its lowest boozing-kens, so unspeakably vile in essence and application that Lanyard heard it with an incredulity almost stupefying—almost, not altogether.
It was barely spoken when those lips that framed it were crushed by a blow of such lightning delivery that, though he must have been prepared for it, Ekstrom's guard was still lowered as he reeled back, lost footing, and went to his knees.
Panting, snarling, uttering teeth and blasphemy, the Prussian recoiled like a serpent, gathered himself together and launched headlong at Lanyard, only to be met full tilt by a second blow and a third, each more merciless than its predecessor, beating him down once more.