"Oh, I was with the woman I cared for, was I?" he said. "And who the devil is it wants horsewhipping when I get at him?"
The deadly calm in his voice arrested her. What had she said to him, babbling in her unhappiness? Alarm steadied her; the dizziness was passing.
"I will not tell you," she said, forgetting how vainly she had looked for him to shield her.
His eyes were blue as steel. She had never seen him angry until to-night.
"I'll make you," he said.
They stared at each other a minute, her eyes as unflinching as his were hard. Across the silly little supper table with its glass and silver, its green, gold-tipped bottles, and its tumbled flowers, he leaned and gripped her hands.
"Did you tell him you are not my wife?" he said.
There was a whiff of scent in their neighbourhood; the great green fronds spreading behind him were rudely stirred. A passing couple must have brushed against that screen on their way to the stairs. A burst of merriment came from the upper end of the room. But these two were as much alone as if it had been a desert.
So that was why he was angry. He believed that she had broken faith....
"I told him nothing," she said.