“Let me pass, Rose!”
“I will not. Sargent, I will not let you make an absolute fool of yourself before my friends before you give me a chance to explain—”
“I will, I tell you! I will! Let me go!”
They were struggling undignifiedly in the center of the room, her firm strong hands tight over his wrists as he pawed at her, trying to wrench himself away. Mr. Piper was a gentleman no longer—nor a business man—nor a figure of nation-wide importance—he was only a small furious figure with a face as grey and distorted as a fighting ape's who was clutching at the woman in front of him as if he would like to tear her with his hands. A red swimming had fallen over his eyes—all he knew was that the woman-person in front of him had fooled him more bitterly and commonly than anyone had been fooled since Adam—and that if he could not get loose in some way or other from the hateful strength that was holding him, he would burst into the disgusting tears of a vicious small boy who is being firmly held down and spanked by an older girl. Grammar, manners and sense had gone from him as completely as if he had never possessed them.
“Lemme go! oh damn you, damn you—you woman—you devil—lemme go!”
“Be quiet, Sargent! Oh shut up, you fool, shut up!”
A noise came from the kitchen—a noise like the sound of a man falling over boxes. Mr. Piper struggled furiously—Paris was crawling out of the window—Paris, the sleek, sly chamberer, the gay hateful cuckoo of his private nest was getting away! Mrs. Severance turned her head toward the noise a second. Mr. Piper fought like a crippled wrestler.
“Grr-ah! Ah, would you, would you?”
He had wrenched one hand free for an instant—it went to his pocket and came out of it with something that shone and was hard like a new metal toy.
“Now will you lemme go?” But Mrs. Severance tried to grab for the hand with the revolver in it instead, and succeeded only in striking the barrel a little aside. There was a noise that sounded like a cannon-cracker bursting in Mr. Piper's face—it was so near—and then he was standing up, shaking all over, but free and a man ready to explain a number of very painful things to Paris as soon as he caught him. He took one step toward the dining-room, sheer rage tugging at his body as high wind tugs at a bough. Now that woman was out of the way——