“Won’t!” said Darcy.
From the corner of a hot and rebellious eye she could see overspreading her trainer’s face that familiar expression of contemptuous and weary patience. Anything else she could have stood. But that—that was the spark that fired the powder. Stooping over, the trainer laid hold, none too gently, on one inert heel.
Heaven and earth reversed themselves for Mr. Andy Dunne. Also day and night, for a galaxy of stars appeared and circulated before his mazed eyes. The walls and the ceiling joined in the whirl, to which an end was set by the impact of the floor against the back of his head. For one brief, sweet, romantic moment Andy Dunne was back in the training-ring with the Big Feller and that venerated and mulish right had landed one on his jaw. But why, oh, why, should the mighty John L. thereupon burst into hysterical sobbing? And if it wasn’t the Big Feller, who was it making those grievous noises?
Mr. Dunne sat up, viewed a huddled, girlish form trying unsuccessfully to burrow headforemost out of sight in the hard mat, and came to a realization of the awful fact. With all the force of her newly acquired leg muscles, the meek Miss Cole had landed a galvanic kick on his unprotected chin. For a moment he stared in stupefaction. Then he arose and went quietly forth into his own place, where he sat on a chair and rubbed his chin and thought, and presently began to chuckle, and kept it up until the chuckle grew into a laugh which shook his tough frame more violently than had the unexpected assault.
“Well, I am d——d!” said Mr. Dunne. “The little son-of-a-gun!”
Meanwhile Darcy lay curled up like a quaking armadillo. Probably Andy Dunne would kill her. She didn’t much care. Life wasn’t worth living, anyhow. She was through. The one pleasant impression of her whole disastrous gymnasium experience was the impact of her heel against that contemptuous chin.
She opened one eye. Andy Dunne was not where he should have landed as the result of the revolution which he had been performing when he whirled from her view. She opened the other eye. Andy Dunne was not anywhere. He had vanished into nothingness.
With all the sensation of a criminal, Darcy rose, dressed, and fled. She fled straight to Gloria Greene. That industrious person was, as usual, at work, and as usual found time to hear Darcy’s troubles. What she heard was gaspy and fragmentary.
“Gloria, I’ve done an awful thing!”
“What? Out with it,” commanded the actress.