There was a moment of silence. The eyes of the mother and son crossed like swords. Elizabeth, standing between them, shivered; then slowly she turned to David, and held out her hands, her open palms falling at her sides with a gesture of complete and pitiful surrender. "Very well, David. I won't do it again. I won't hurt you again. I will do whatever you tell me."
David caught her in his arms. His mother trembled with despair; the absolute immovability of these two was awful!
"Elizabeth, he is selfish and wicked! David, have you no manhood? Shame on you!" Contempt seemed her last resource; it did not touch him. "Wait two days," she implored him; "one day, even—"
"I told you we are going to-morrow," he said. He was urging Elizabeth gently from the room, but at his mother's voice she paused.
"Suppose," Helena Richie was saying—"suppose that Blair does not give you a divorce?"
Elizabeth looked into David's eyes silently.
"And," his mother said, "when David gets tired of you—what then?"
"Mother!"
"Men do tire of such women, Elizabeth. What then?"
"I am not afraid of that," the girl said.