"Well, well--"
"Oh! leave me alone. Let me think--"
"Think," he said, "if you want to. It's your cry always. But you
can't save yourself by thinking, my dear girl. You can't save
yourself in any way now. If saving it is--this parsimony--"
"Oh, go--go."
"Very well. I will go. I will go and smoke a cigar. And think of
you, dear. . . . But do you think I should do all this if I did
not care?"
"Go," she whispered, without glancing round. She continued to
stare out of the window. He stood looking at her for a moment,
with a strange light in his eyes. He made a step towards her. "I
HAVE you,", he said. "You are mine. Netted--caught. But mine." He
would have gone up to her and laid his hand upon her, but he did
not dare to do that yet. "I have you in my hand," he said, "in my
power. Do you hear--POWER!"
She remained impassive. He stared at her for half a minute, and
then, with a superb gesture that was lost upon her, went to the
door. Surely the instinctive abasement of her sex before Strength
was upon his side. He told himself that his battle was won. She
heard the handle move and the catch click as the door closed
behind him.
XXII
And now without in the twilight behold Mr. Hoopdriver, his cheeks
hot, his eye bright! His brain is in a tumult. The nervous,
obsequious Hoopdriver, to whom I introduced you some days since,
has undergone a wonderful change. Ever since he lost that 'spoor'
in Chichester, he has been tormented by the most horrible visions
of the shameful insults that may be happening.
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