"Do you call me 'mad,' and 'creature'? Do you dare deny me, now, after all I've told you? You coward, you coward! You've denied me life, but you can't deny this night! The people in this place will let you know presently! I tried to spare you. Though I'd thirsted for my revenge I pleaded with you, prayed to you to spare yourself! If you'd stayed in the house, you might have come to your senses and forgotten me! But what hope for you is there now? Do you still believe I exist? Look back at the night! Do you remember the portrait? You commanded me to stop—commanded, as you've always commanded my fate, and I was powerless. To me, that was a parental command—from you, you who deliberately wouldn't be my parent! Did you see me wince under it? If you hadn't done it, you'd have found me out right then! I'm not a physical thing, and I couldn't have moved it! I only said I was going to Maurice's! I couldn't have come here if you hadn't brought me! When you wondered, as we were starting out, whether I had a hat, I stooped down in the hall. But you only thought I picked one up! As we came in here, you only thought I checked it! Did you see the man stare as you reached out to take my check away from me? Have I eaten or drunk to-night? I've not, for I'm not a creature! And mad, I? Look to yourself, as I told you to look before it was too late! You fool, you've been staring inoffensive women out of countenance, with all the hate from my face printed on yours, and in the eyes of all these people you've been sitting here for half an hour talking to yourself, and ordering wine and food for an empty chair! You won't ever believe you're mad, but every one else will!"
"So help me God," cried Henry Montagu, white and trembling, "you're there! I swear you're there!"
"So help you God, I'm there!" cried the boy frightfully, pointing straight at him.
"Right there, in your brain, there, there, and only there! I'm no more flesh and blood than—than I ever was, because, you murderer, you and your damned wife never would let me be! Well, do you see through me now?"
"No! No!" screamed Mr. Montagu. "I don't see through you! I don't!" But as he leaned forward to clutch at him in his terror, all that he could see before him was a closed door beyond a dozen tables, a disused entranceway diagonally opposite the one that had let them in. "I don't believe you!" he wailed. "Oh, my God, my God, my God, where are you?" He turned frantically to the men and women nearest him. "You saw him! There was a boy with me, wasn't there? Wasn't there? Yes, see, there, isn't he going for that door? Oh, my boy, my boy!" And he dashed toward it. He heard the terrible screams of women, and chairs and a table crashed in his wake. He reached it. It was locked.
Desperately sobbing, he hurled himself against it.
It seemed to him as if all the men in the restaurant fell upon him. Strong, merciless hands dragged down and pinioned the wrists with which he had beaten against the door.
"GOVERNMENT GOAT"[11]
By SUSAN GLASPELL