"Oh, thank you! I'd like to see them." She tried by the cheerfulness of her voice to make his frown relax.
She followed him gingerly down the stairway to the basement. The batteries stood in great rows on racks of shelves, big glass jars rimmed with poisonous-looking green and yellow stains, filled with discolored water and pieces of rotting metal. A failing electric-light bulb illuminated their dusty ranks, and dimly showed black beams and cobwebs overhead.
"It's awfully good of you to take so much trouble," she began gratefully.
"Cut that out! How long're you going to think you're making a damn fool of me?" Mr. Roberts turned on her suddenly a face that terrified her. Words choked in his throat. He caught her wrist, and she felt his whole body shaking. "You—you—damned little—" The rows of glass jars spun around her. She hardly understood the words he flung at her. "Coming here with your big eyes, playing me for all you're worth, acting innocence! D'you think you've fooled me a minute? D'you think I haven't seen through your little game? How long d'you think I'm going to stand for it—say?"
"Let me go," she said, panting.
She steadied herself against the end of a rack, where his furious gesture flung her. They faced each other in the close space, breathing hard. "I don't know—what you mean," she said. Her world was going to pieces under her feet.
"You know damn well what I mean. Don't keep on lying to me. You can't put it over. I know where you were last night." His face was contorted again. "Yes, and all the other nights, all the time you've been kidding yourself you were making a fool of me. I know all about it. Get that? I know what you were before I ever gave you a job. What d'you suppose I gave it to you for? So you could run around on the outside, laughing at me?"
"Wait—oh, please—"
"I've done all the listening to you I'm going to do. You're going to do something besides talk from now on. I'm not a boy you can twist around your finger. I don't care how cute you are."
"I don't—want to. I only—want to get away," she said. She still faced him, for she could not hide her face without taking her eyes from him, and she was afraid to do that. When the silence continued she began to drop into it small disjointed phrases. "I didn't know, I thought you were so good to me. We couldn't help the boat being late. Please, please, just let me go away. I was only trying to learn to telegraph. I thought I was doing so well."