"Jackie."
"Great God!"
Lightbody, overturning chair and table, sprang up—recoiling as one recoils before an avenging specter. In his convulsive fingers were the time-tables, clinging like damp lily pads.
"Jackie, I couldn't do it. I couldn't abandon you. I've come back." Gently, seeming to move rather than to walk, advancing with none of the uncertainty that was in her voice, she cried, with a little break: "Forgive me!"
"No, no, never!"
He retreated behind a chair, fury in his voice, weak at the thought of the floating, entangling scarf, and the perfume he knew so well. Then, recovering himself, he cried brutally:
"Never! You have given me my freedom. I'll keep it! Thanks!"
With a gradual motion, she loosened her filmy cloak and let it slip from the suddenly revealed shoulders and slender body.
"No, no, I forbid you!" he cried. Anger—animal, instinctive anger—began to possess him. He became brutal as he felt himself growing weak.
"Either you go out or I do!"