month, next year. But it'll come. And when it does come you'll see me
and Eddy just waltzin' in and takin' the chief seats in the synagogue!
And you'll have a free pass to the show!"
Either he was too intoxicated with his vengeful vision, or the shadows
of the room had deepened, but he did not see the quick flush that
had risen to his wife's face with this allusion to Barker, nor the
after-settling of her handsome features into a dogged determination
equal to his own. His blind fury against the three partners did not
touch her curiosity; she was only struck with the evident depth of his
emotion. He had never been a braggart; his hostility had always been
lazy and cynical. Remembering this, she had a faint stirring of respect
for the undoubted courage and consciousness of strength shown in
this wild but single-handed crusade against wealth and power; rather,
perhaps, it seemed to her to condone her own weakness in her youthful
and inexplicable passion for him. No wonder she had submitted.
"Then you have nothing more to tell me?" she said after a pause, rising
and going towards the mantel.
"You needn't light up for me," he returned, rising also. "I am going.
Unless," he added, with his coarse laugh, "you think it wouldn't look
well for Mrs. Horncastle to have been sitting in the dark with--a
stranger!" He paused as she contemptuously put down the candlestick and
threw the unlit match into the grate. "No, I've nothing more to tell.
He's a fancy-looking pup. You'd take him for twenty-one, though he's
only sixteen--clean-limbed and perfect--but for one thing"--He stopped.
He met her quick look of interrogation, however, with a lowering silence
that, nevertheless, changed again as he surveyed her erect figure by
the faint light of the window with a sardonic smile. "He favors you, I
think, and in all but one thing, too."
"And that?" she queried coldly, as he seemed to hesitate.
"He ain't ashamed of ME," he returned, with a laugh.
The door closed behind him; she heard his heavy step descend the
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