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Page 46
"That may be true or not," he answered with an indifferent movement of
his shoulders. "It is all one to me. I have made up my mind that you
shall leave this house this morning, and believe me, Miss Searight, I
shall carry my point."
For the moment Lloyd caught her breath. For the moment she saw clearly
with just what sort of man she had to deal. There was a conviction in
his manner--now that he had quieted himself--that suddenly appeared
unanswerable. It was like the slow, still moving of a piston.
But the next moment her own character reasserted itself. She remembered
what she was herself. If he was determined, she was obstinate; if he was
resolved, she was stubborn; if he was powerful, she was unyielding.
Never had she conceded her point before; never had she allowed herself
to be thwarted in the pursuance of a course she believed to be right.
Was she, of all women, to yield now? The consciousness of her own power
of resistance came suddenly to her aid. Bennett was strong, but was she
not strong herself? Where under the blue sky was the power that could
break down her will? When death itself could not prevail against her,
what in life could shake her resolution?
Suddenly the tremendous import of the moment, the magnitude of the
situation, flashed upon Lloyd. Both of them had staked everything upon
this issue. Two characters of extraordinary power clashed violently
together. There was to be no compromise, no half-measures. Either she or
Bennett must in the end be beaten. One of them was to be broken and
humbled beyond all retrieving. There in that commonplace little room,
with its trivial accessories, its inadequate background, a battle royal
swiftly prepared itself. With the abruptness of an explosion the crisis
developed.
"Do I need to tell you," remarked Bennett, "that your life is rather
more to me than any other consideration in the world? Do you suppose
when the lives of every member of my command depended upon me I was any
less resolved to succeed than I am now? I succeeded then, and I shall
succeed now, now when there is much more at stake. I am not accustomed
to failure, and I shall not fail now. I assure you that I shall stop at
nothing."
It was beyond Lloyd to retain her calmness under such aggression. It
seemed as though her self-respect demanded that she should lose her
temper.
"And you think you can drive me as you drove your deck-hands?" she
exclaimed. "What have you to do with me? Am I your subordinate? Do you
think you can bully me? We are not in Kolyuchin Bay, Mr. Bennett."
"You're the woman I love," he answered with an abrupt return of
vehemence, "and, by God! I shall stop at nothing to save your life."
"And my love for you, that you pretend is so much to you, I suppose that
this is the means you take to awaken it. Admitting, for the moment, that
you could induce me to shirk my duty, how should I love you for it? Ask
yourself that."
But Bennett had but one answer to all her words. He struck his fist into
the palm of his hand as he answered:
"Your life is more to me than any other consideration."
"But my life--how do you know it is a question of my life? Come, if we
are to quarrel, let us quarrel upon reasonable grounds. It does not
follow that I risk my life by staying--"
"Leave the house first; we can talk of that afterward."
"I have allowed you to talk too much already," she exclaimed angrily.
"Let us come to the bottom of things at once. I will not be influenced
nor cajoled nor bullied into leaving my post. Now, do you understand?
That is my final answer. You who were a commander, who were a leader of
men, what would you have done if one of your party had left his post at
a time of danger? I can tell you what you would have done--you would
have shot him, after first disgracing him, and now you would disgrace
me. Is it reasonable? Is it consistent?"
Bennett snapped his fingers.
"That for consistency!"
"And you would be willing to disgrace me--to have me disgrace myself?"
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