He caught Facciolati under the arm-pits and raised him clear of the ground.
"You——"
A new sound interrupted him. At first he thought that the mob had wheeled a machine-gun into the street and turned it on the factory. Then the sound became a clatter and, looking through the ranks of soldiers, Luke saw, far ahead, a tangle of rearing horses and falling men: even City Hall had been unable longer to hold its hand; one of the patrolmen who had fled to the factory must have telephoned a final word to headquarters; the mounted police were charging the crowd; the riot was ended.
§11. Luke ran up the stairs to the upper office and found the door unbolted. He did not know what he went for. He was not glad that the riot was ended; he was raging like a man-eating tiger foiled of its quarry.
Betty stood at the window in the full light of the street-lamp. He scarcely knew her face. He had never seen her look like this. He had never dreamed that she could look like this. Her hat had fallen to the floor; her golden hair tossed above her head like licking tongues of flame; her eyes were bright coals; her cheeks were scarlet; her white upper teeth bit deep into the vermilion of her lower lip. As if to give freer play to a breast that panted, she had torn open her dress at the base of her splendid throat. The revolver was in her hand. It was cocked and smoking. She looked like Bellona invoked and materialized from the fire and smoke of that roaring inferno of the street.
"How many?" she gasped. "How many have we killed?"
Luke stopped at the door. He knew now that he had indeed heard shots from overhead. He knew that the same primæval passion which had made him a tiger—and still maintained its sway—had worked this metamorphosis also, had changed this gentle girl into what he saw. At another time, in another mood, he would have loathed it; but in his present mood he gloried in it. He thought that he had never seen her so beautiful or imagined her so splendid; her madness matched his own.
He came toward her, circling the table that stood between them.
"None!" he cried. "That fool Captain told the men to shoot high."
He put out his arms. He wrenched her to him. His right arm clutched her about the supple shoulders, the fingers of his right hand sinking into her firm left breast. With his left hand he shoved her face upwards. Brown from the caked blood of the man he had bitten, his opened mouth closed upon hers.