He paused to breathe. The girl before him was distinctly flushed now, and was facing him with wide eyes—hard eyes, he thought. He had poured out a flood of feeling, and it had left her cold.
She was leaning back against the fence, her arms extended along the top rail, looking and looking at him.
“Silverstone!” he snorted, unable to keep silence “Silverstone! The man's a crook, I tell you. Nothing that he wants gets away from him. Understand me? Nothing! You people will be children beside him.... Zanin is bad enough. He's smart! He'll wait you out! He doesn't believe in marriage, he doesn't! But Zanin—why, Silverstone'll play with him!”
Her eyes were still on him—wide and cold. Now her lips parted, and she drew in a quick breath, “How on earth,” she said, “did you learn all this! Who told you?”
He shut his lips close together. Plainly he had broken; he had gone wild, cleared the traces. Staring at her, at that sweater, he tried to think.... She would upbraid Betty. How would he ever square things with Hy!
He saw her hands grip the fence rail so tightly that her finger-tips went white.
“Tell me,” she said again, with deliberate emphasis, “where you learned these things. Who told you?”
He felt rather than saw the movement of her body within the sweater as she breathed with a slow inhalation. His own breath came quickly. His throat was suddenly dry. He swallowed—once, twice. Then he stepped forward and laid his hand, a trembling hard, on her forearm.
She shook it off and sprang back.
“Don't look at me like that!” his voice said. And rushed on: “Can't you see that I'm pleading for your very life! Can't you see that I know what you are headed for—that I want to save you from yourself—that I love you—that I'm offering you my life—that I want to take you out of this crazy atmosphere of the Village and give...”