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Page 84
"I'm here!"
Maud advanced quickly. His eyes had grown accustomed to the murk,
and he could see her dimly. The smell of her damp raincoat came to
him like a breath of ozone. He could even see her eyes shining in
the darkness, so close was she to him.
"I hope you've not been waiting long?"
George's heart was thundering against his ribs. He could scarcely
speak. He contrived to emit a No.
"I didn't think at first I could get away. I had to . . ." She
broke off with a cry. The rat, fond of exercise like all rats, had
made another of its excitable sprints across the floor.
A hand clutched nervously at George's arm, found it and held it.
And at the touch the last small fragment of George's self-control
fled from him. The world became vague and unreal. There remained
of it but one solid fact--the fact that Maud was in his arms and
that he was saying a number of things very rapidly in a voice that
seemed to belong to somebody he had never met before.
CHAPTER 19.
With a shock of dismay so abrupt and overwhelming that it was like
a physical injury, George became aware that something was wrong.
Even as he gripped her, Maud had stiffened with a sharp cry; and
now she was struggling, trying to wrench herself free. She broke
away from him. He could hear her breathing hard.
"You--you----" She gulped.
"Maud!"
"How dare you!"
There was a pause that seemed to George to stretch on and on
endlessly. The rain pattered on the leaky roof. Somewhere in the
distance a dog howled dismally. The darkness pressed down like a
blanket, stifling thought.
"Good night, Mr. Bevan." Her voice was ice. "I didn't think you
were--that kind of man."
She was moving toward the door; and, as she reached it, George's
stupor left him. He came back to life with a jerk, shaking from
head to foot. All his varied emotions had become one emotion--a
cold fury.
"Stop!"
Maud stopped. Her chin was tilted, and she was wasting a baleful
glare on the darkness.
"Well, what is it?"
Her tone increased George's wrath. The injustice of it made him
dizzy. At that moment he hated her. He was the injured party. It
was he, not she, that had been deceived and made a fool of.
"I want to say something before you go."
"I think we had better say no more about it!"
By the exercise of supreme self-control George kept himself from
speaking until he could choose milder words than those that rushed
to his lips.
"I think we will!" he said between his teeth.
Maud's anger became tinged with surprise. Now that the first shock
of the wretched episode was over, the calmer half of her mind was
endeavouring to soothe the infuriated half by urging that George's
behaviour had been but a momentary lapse, and that a man may lose
his head for one wild instant, and yet remain fundamentally a
gentleman and a friend. She had begun to remind herself that this
man had helped her once in trouble, and only a day or two before
had actually risked his life to save her from embarrassment. When
she heard him call to her to stop, she supposed that his better
feelings had reasserted themselves; and she had prepared herself to
receive with dignity a broken, stammered apology. But the voice
that had just spoken with a crisp, biting intensity was not the
voice of remorse. It was a very angry man, not a penitent one, who
was commanding--not begging--her to stop and listen to him.
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