"Do you know what you're doing?" he broke out. "Haven't you done enough already? What do you suppose I'm made of?"
The moment he had said it he saw that he had made no mistake. It would not be necessary to go the length of turning the key. He glared at her for a moment; then he spoke again, less savagely, but no less curtly.
"You called me back to say something," he said. "What is it?"
Instinctively Amory had covered her face with her hands. It was fearfully sweet and dangerous. Flattery could hardly have gone further than that tortured cry, "What do you think I'm made of?" Her heart was thumping—thump, thump, thump, thump. A lesser woman would have taken refuge in evasions, but not she—not she, with Cosimo carrying on with Britomart, and Dorothy Tasker no doubt whispering to her Otis or Wilbur or whatever her American's name might be, and Stan perhaps deep in an intrigue with his Spanish female at that very moment. No, she had provoked him, and he had now every right to cry, not "Have you read 'The Tragic Comedians'?" but "Do you know what you're doing?"... And he was speaking again now.
"Because," he was saying quietly, "if that's it ... I must know. I must have a little time. There will be things to settle. I don't quite know how it happened; I suddenly saw you—and did it. Anyway, it's done—or begun.... But I won't stab Cosimo in the back.... It will have to be the Continent, I suppose. Paris. There's a little hotel I know in the Boulevard Montparnasse. It's not very luxurious, but it's cheap and fairly clean. Seven francs a day, but it would come rather less for the two of us. And you wouldn't have to spend much on dress in the Quartier. Or there's Montmartre. Or some of those out-of-the-way seaside places. I should like to take you to the sea first, and then to a town——"
He stopped, and began to walk up and down the studio.
Amory was suddenly pale. She had not thought of this. She had thought that perhaps Mr. Strong might give a cry, rush across the studio, and take her in his arms; but of this cold and almost passionless prevision of details she had not dreamed. And yet that was magnificent too. Edgar wasted no time in dalliance when there was planning to be done. There would be time enough for softer delights when the whole of the Latin Quarter lay spread out before them in indolent magnificence of bloom. He was terrifying and superb. Such a man not manage Mr. Prang! Why, here he was, ready to bear her off that very night at a word!
Paris—Montmartre—the Quartier!
It was Romance with a vengeance!
Then at a thought she grew paler still. The children! What about Corin and Bonniebell? It didn't matter so much about Cosimo; it would serve him right; but what about the twins? Were they also to be included in the seven francs a day? And wouldn't it matter how they dressed either in the Quarter? Or did Edgar propose that they should be left behind in Cosimo's keeping, with Britomart Belchamber for a stepmother?