"I've heard everything from Lew Hervey," said the girl, in that low strained voice which a woman uses when her self-control is barely as great as her anger, "and I suppose I don't need to say that after these days of waiting, Mr. Perris, I'm disappointed. I shall need you no longer. You are free to go without giving notice. The experiment has been—unfortunate."
He felt that she had searched as carefully as her passion permitted to find a word that would sting him. The hot retort leaped to his lips but he closed his teeth tight over it. A vision of Alcatraz with the wind in tail and mane galloped back across his memory and staring bitterly down at the girl he reflected that it was she who had brought him face to face with the temptation of the outlaw horse.
Then he found that he was saying stupidly: "I'm sure sorry, Miss
Jordan. But I guess being sorry don't help much."
"None at all. And—we won't talk any longer about it, if you please.
The thing is done; another failure. Mr. Hervey will give you your pay.
You can do the rest of your talking to him."
She lowered her head; she opened the book; she adjusted it carefully to the light streaming over her shoulder; she even summoned a faint smile of interest as though her thoughts were a thousand miles from this petty annoyance and back in the theme of the story. Perris, blind with rage, barely saw the details, barely heard the many-throated chuckle from the watchers across the patio. Never in his life had he so hungered to answer scorn with scorn but his hands were tied. Alcatraz he must have as truly as a starved man must have food; and to win Alcatraz he must live on the Jordan ranch. He could not speak, or even think, for that maddening laughter was growing behind him; then he saw the hand of Marianne, as she turned a page, tremble slightly. At that his voice came to him.
"Lady, I can't talk to Hervey."
She answered without looking up, and he hated her for it.
"Are you ashamed to face him?"
"I'm afraid to face him."
That, indeed, brought her head up and let him see all of her rage translated into cruel scorn.