he thought
that his prey was escaping him. His swiftness was amazing, almost
inconceivable, more like the effect of a trick or of a mechanism. The
thump on the door was awful as if he had not been able to stop himself in
time. The shock seemed enough to stun an elephant. It was really funny.
And after the crash there was a moment of silence as if he were
recovering himself. The next thing was a low grunt, and at once he
picked up the thread of his fixed idea.

"You will have to be my wife. I have no shame. You swore you would be
and so you will have to be." Stifled low sounds made me bend down again
to the kneeling form, white in the flush of the dark red glow. "For
goodness' sake don't," I whispered down. She was struggling with an
appalling fit of merriment, repeating to herself, "Yes, every day, for
two months. Sixty times at least, sixty times at least." Her voice was
rising high. She was struggling against laughter, but when I tried to
put my hand over her lips I felt her face wet with tears. She turned it
this way and that, eluding my hand with repressed low, little moans. I
lost my caution and said, "Be quiet," so sharply as to startle myself
(and her, too) into expectant stillness.

Ortega's voice in the hall asked distinctly: "Eh? What's this?" and then
he kept still on his side listening, but he must have thought that his
ears had deceived him. He was getting tired, too. He was keeping quiet
out there--resting. Presently he sighed deeply; then in a harsh
melancholy tone he started again.

"My love, my soul, my life, do speak to me. What am I that you should
take so much trouble to pretend that you aren't there? Do speak to me,"
he repeated tremulously, following this mechanical appeal with a string
of extravagantly endearing names, some of them quite childish, which all
of a sudden stopped dead; and then after a pause there came a distinct,
unutterably weary: "What shall I do now?" as though he were speaking to
himself.

I shuddered to hear rising from the floor, by my side, a vibrating,
scornful: "Do! Why, slink off home looking over your shoulder as you
used to years ago when I had done with you--all but the laughter."

"Rita," I murmured, appalled. He must have been struck dumb for a
moment. Then, goodness only knows why, in his dismay or rage he was
moved to speak in French with a most ridiculous accent.

"So you have found your tongue at last--_Catin_! You were that from the