“I'll tell him so, too,” blustered Mortimer, shaking himself into an upright posture, and laying a pudgy, clinched fist on the table. “I'm not afraid of him! He'll find that out, too. I know enough to stagger him. Not that I mean to use it. I'm not going to have him think that my demands on him for my own property resemble extortion.”
“Extortion?” she repeated.
“Yes. I don't want him to think I'm trying to intimidate him. I won't have him think I'm a grafter; but I've half a mind to shake that money out of him, in one way or another.”
He struck the table and looked at her for further sign of approval.
“I'm not afraid of him,” he repeated. “I wish to God he were here, and I'd tell him so!”
She said coolly: “I was wishing that too.”
For a while they sat silent, preoccupied, avoiding each other's direct gaze. When she rose he started, watching her in a dazed way as she walked to the telephone.
“Shall I?” she asked quietly, turning to him, her hand on the receiver.
“Wait. W-what are you going to do?” he stammered.
“Call him up. Shall I?”