He picked up his hat again and again held out his hand.
Lady Barbara locked her fingers behind her back and turned away.
"I don't like the feeling that you'll ring for carbolic as soon as I'm out of the room!" she said.
"D'you think I should?"
"You wouldn't wait!" she cried, springing round as though she were going to strike him.
Jack's growing surprise merged in a novel sense of helplessness. The girl had wholly lost control of herself. Her pupils were dilated, her cheeks white with anger and fatigue; one hand gripped the back of her chair, and the other rolled her handkerchief into a tight ball. Not for the first time that night he felt that a man had only himself to blame for getting on to such terms with a woman. A lion's cage could be entered or avoided at will....
Yet he could not escape the feeling that even at the white-heat of passion she was enjoying her scene.
"Do part friends," he begged. "I shouldn't presume to criticize you, if I didn't think you worth it. I ask you—as a favour—to come to that matinée with me. Will you?"
Lady Barbara could not decide whether to try once again to punish him; she dared not admit that she was daunted, but she was certainly puzzled. At one moment he insulted her, at another he hoisted her on to a pinnacle and mounted guard below.
"Would you like me to come?" she asked.