But he brushed her hands roughly away.
"You want to know what it's all about? Then go over to—well, to Milligan's. Donnegan will be there. He'll explain things to you, I guess. He wants to see you. And maybe I'll come over later and join you."
Seeing Lord Nick before her, so shaken, so gray of face, so dull of eye, she pictured Donnegan as a devil in human form, cunning, resistless.
"Nick, dear—" she pleaded.
He closed the door in her face, and she heard his heavy step go back across the room. In some mysterious manner she felt the Promethean fire had been stolen from Lord Nick, and Donnegan's was the hand that had robbed him of it.
36
It was fear that Nelly Lebrun felt first of all. It was fear because the impossible had happened and the immovable object had been at last moved. Going back to her own room, the record of Lord Nick flashed across her mind; one long series of thrilling deeds. He had been a great and widely known figure on the mountain desert while she herself was no more than a girl. When she first met him she had been prepared for the sight of a firebreathing monster; and she had never quite recovered from the first thrill of finding him not devil but man.
Quite oddly, now that there seemed another man as powerful as Lord Nick or even more terrible, she felt for the big man more tenderly than ever; for like all women, there was a corner of her heart into which she wished to receive a thing she could cherish and protect. Lord Nick, the invincible, had seemed without any real need of other human beings. His love for her had seemed unreal because his need of her seemed a superficial thing. Now that he was in sorrow and defeat she suddenly visualized a Lord Nick to whom she could truly be a helpmate. Tears came to her eyes at the thought.