The more Inga continued silent and without remonstrance, the wilder his resentment mounted. He continued to drink of the poisonous rank beverages served at extortionate prices. Many stared at them and discussed them openly, but no interference was offered. There was something so combustible and wild in his attitude, that, there, at least no one was under illusions as to the danger. In half an hour the spirit of restlessness in him drove him out into the streets again. He was so befuddled now, that he could not remember her name, calling her Pepita, imagining that she was the little Spanish model of the Latin Quarter who had tried to kill herself.
All at once a horror of the city, of its sham brilliance paling against the graying sky, of its oppressive stone prisons, possessed him with a longing for flight. He strode down into the subway and took a West Farms express. In the car which they entered a score of persons were wearily grouped, half of them asleep, a few heavy-eyed laborers, two men in evening dress, a girl with a heavy coat buttoned over a ball dress, arms folded, and gazing stolidly ahead. Dangerfield seated himself in a corner, nodded, and went to sleep. When they reached the end of the line Inga awoke him with the help of the guard, and asked him what he wanted to do.
He got up suddenly and walked down the long steps to the street. They were in the open spaces of the upper city; a few milk-wagons were passing at rare intervals, about them was the feeling of the rediscovered earth in long, empty, grass-grown lots. He had not spoken a word. Suddenly he stopped and turned, with a new menace in his voice.
“Well—had enough?”
“I’m not tired,” she said, shaking her head and meeting his look steadily.
“We’ll see,” he said, and started off so furiously that, for a time, she was put to it to keep up with him. At the end, from the need of taking breath himself, he stopped and wheeled on her.
“What—you’re still here!”
“Yes.”
She forced a smile, and this smile completed his exasperation.
“Why won’t you let me go?” he cried, in an outburst of rage. “You let me go, do you hear? Dogging and sneaking about me! What right you got—what business is it what I do! No one shall stop me—no one, do you hear?” He advanced threateningly on her. “Had enough of interference—d’you understand? You let me go now—let me go, or I’ll—”