"You will do as I tell you as long as I find it worth while to give you orders?"
"Don't make me do anything horrid!"
He locked the suitcase and replaced it in the rack. Sonia looked at him for a moment without understanding and then burst into convulsive weeping.
"I can't bear it! I can't bear it any longer!" she sobbed. "You're torturing me! I'll do whatever you want!"
O'Rane smiled and lifted down the case once more.
"I haven't laid a finger on you," he remarked contemptuously. "I haven't spoken a dozen sentences. You've just had eighteen hours without food and eleven in my agreeable company. And you're broken! And you thought to measure wills with me! Have some food—and a drink. It's weak brandy and water. Not too much or your pride'll get the better of you, to say nothing of indigestion."
He handed her bread and a wing of chicken, which she ate ravenously in her fingers; then hard-boiled eggs and a piece of cheese.
"Say 'Thank you,'" he commanded at the end. She murmured something inaudible. "Clearly!" She repeated the words. "That's better. Now I'll start my breakfast, and you shall entertain me by telling the full and true account of your latest scrape. And after that I'll tell you what I'm going to do with you. Fire away."
He began a leisurely, nonchalant meal, but Sonia made no sound.
"I'm waiting," he was prompt to remind her.