Then she made herself presentable; took care of her hair, smoothed her face at the mirror and behind the shield of the drug she waited. She heard the old car rattling up the street, and braced herself for the struggle. She knew–she had learned by bitter experience that the first blow in a rough and tumble was half the battle. As he came raging through the door, slamming it behind him, she faced him, and before he could speak, she sneered:
“Ah, you coward–you sneaking, cur coward–who would murder a child to win–Ach!” she cried. “You are loathsome–get away from me!”
The furious man rushed toward her with his hands clinched. She stood with her arms akimbo and said slowly:
“You try that–just try that.”
428He stopped. She came over and rubbed her body against his, purring, with a pause after each word:
“You are a coward–aren’t you?”
She put her fingers under his jaw, and sneered, “If ever you lay hands on me–just one finger on me, Tom Van Dorn–” She did not finish her sentence.
The man uttered a shrill, insane cry of fury and whirled and would have run, but she caught him, and with a gross physical power, that he knew and dreaded, she swung him by force into a chair.
“Now,” she panted, “sit down like a man and tell me what you are going to do about it? Look up–dawling!” she cried, as Van Dorn slumped in the chair.
The man gave her a look of hate. His eyes, that showed his soul, burned with rage and from his face, so mobile and expressive, a devil of malice gaped impotently at his wife, as he sat, a heap of weak vanity, before her. He pulled himself up and exclaimed: