Slowly she nodded.
“Are you playing fair with me?”
“Oh, Peter—yes! I am.”
“You are still engaged to be my wife?”
“Yes. Please, Peter....”
“Then”—the moment Henry Bates had shrewdly, painfully waited as he watched the man, came now; the suppressions that had been struggling within Peter's breast broke bounds; his voice suddenly rang out—“then, I forbid you to go on!”
Sue paled; seemed to sink down a little in her chair; knit her brows; said nothing.
The room was very still. Even the Greenwich Village group was startled, hushed, by the queer sense of impending drama that filled the room.
During the long hush several girls went out, hurriedly. Others struggled unsuccessfully to make talk. One laughed.
Peter looked around with half-hearted defiance, then dropped his eyes. “Evidently,” he said, addressing the Worm with queer precise formality, “the thing for me to do is to go. I am not desired here.” But he sat motionless.