aphrase. In the sparse
thesaurus of his vocabulary he found nothing subtle. He groaned:

"Without his--his making love to you?"

"I wish you wouldn't ask me," said Mamise.

"I don't need to. You've answered," Davidge snarled. "And so will
he."

Mamise's heart was suddenly a live coal, throbbing with fire and
keenly painful--yet very warm. She had a man who loved her well enough
to hate for her and to avenge her. That was something gained.

Davidge brooded. It was inconceivably hideous that he should have
given his heart to this pretty thing at his side only to have her
ensconce herself in the arms of another man and give him the liberty
of her cheeks--Heaven knew, hell knew, what other liberties. He vowed
that he would never put his lips where another man's had been.

Mamise seemed to feel soiled and fit only for the waste-basket of
life. She had delivered her "message to Garcia," and Garcia rewarded
her with disgust. She waited shame-fast for a moment before she could
even falter:

"Did you happen to hear the news I brought you? Or doesn't it interest
you?"

Davidge answered with repugnance:

"Agh!"

In her meekness she needed some insult to revive her, and this
sufficed. She flared instantly:

"I'm sorry I told you. I hope that Nicky blows up your whole damned
shipyard and you with it; and I'd like to help him!"

Nothing less insane could have served the brilliant effect of that
outburst. It cleared the sultry air like a crackling thunderbolt. A
gentle rain followed down her cheeks, while the overcharged heart of
Davidge roared with Jovian laughter.

There is no cure for these desperate situations like such an
explosion. It burns up at once the litter of circumstance and leaves
hardly an ash. It fuses elements that otherwise resist welding, and it
annihilates all minor fears in one great terror that ends in a joyous
relief.

Mamise was having a noble cry now, and Davidge was sobbing with
laughter--the two forms of recreation most congenial to their
respective sexes.

Davidge caught her hands and cooed with such noise that the driver
outside must have heard the reverberations through the glass:

"You blessed child! I'm a low-lived brute, and you're an angel."

A man loves to call himself a brute, and a woman loves to be called an
angel, especially when it is untrue in both cases.

The sky of their being thus cleansed with rain and thunder, and all
blue peace again, they were calm enough by and