"Do you intend to marry Mary Ledwith?"
"No."
"Is that final?"
"Yes!"
"Do you expect to marry anybody else?"
"Yes!" he shouted, partly rising from his chair, his narrow face distorted. "Yes, I do! Now you know, don't you! Is the matter settled at last? Do you understand clearly?—you fat-headed, meddlesome old fool!"
He sprang to his feet in an access of fury and began loping up and down the room, gesticulating, almost mouthing out his hatred and abuse—rendered more furious still by the knowledge of his own weakness and disintegration—his downfall from that silent citadel of self-control which had served him so many years as a stronghold for defiance or refuge.
"You impertinent old woman!" he shouted, "if you don't keep your fat nose out of my affairs I'll set a thousand men tampering with the foundations of your investments! Keep your distance and mind your business—I warn you now and for the last time, or else—" He swung around on her, and the jaw muscles began to work—"or else I'll supply the Yellows with a few facts concerning that Englishman's late father and yourself!"
Mrs. Sprowl's face went pasty-white; in the fat, colourless expanse only the deathless fury of her eyes seemed alive.
"So that fetched you," he observed, coolly. "I don't want to give you apoplexy; I don't want you messing up my house. I merely want you to understand that it's dangerous to come sniffing and nosing around my threshold. You do understand, I guess."