“Now,” Musgrave concluded, “you are going away from this place very quickly, and you are going alone.  You will do this because I tell you to do so, and because you are afraid of me.  Understand, also—­if you will be so good—­that the only reason I don’t give you a thorough thrashing is that I don’t think you are worth the trouble.  I only want Patricia to perceive exactly what sort of man you are.”

The blow staggered Charteris.  He seemed to grow smaller.  His clothes seemed to hang more loosely about him.  His face was paper-white, and the red mark showed plainly upon it.

“There would be no earthly sense in my hitting you back,” he said equably.  “It would only necessitate my getting the thrashing which, I can assure you, we are equally anxious to avoid.  Of course you are able to knock me down and so on, because you are nearly twice as big as I am.  I fail to see that proves anything in particular.  Come, Patricia!” And he turned to her, and reached out his hand.

She shrank from him.  She drew away from him, without any vehemence, as if he had been some slimy, harmless reptile.  A woman does not like to see fear in a man’s eyes; and there was fear in Mr. Charteris’s eyes, for all that he smiled.  Patricia’s heart sickened.  She loathed him, and she was a little sorry for him.

“Oh, you cur, you cur!” she gasped, in a wondering whisper.  Patricia went to her husband, and held out her hands.  She was afraid of him.  She was proud of him, the strong animal.  “Take me away, Rudolph,” she said, simply; “take me away from that—­that coward.  Take me away, my dear.  You may beat me, too, if you like, Rudolph.  I dare say I have deserved it.  But I want you to deal brutally with me, to carry me away by force, just as you threatened to do the day we were married—­at the Library, you remember, when the man was crying ‘Fresh oranges!’ and you smelt so deliciously of soap and leather and cigarette smoke.”

Musgrave took both her hands in his.  He smiled at Charteris.

The novelist returned the smile, intensifying its sweetness.  “I fancy, Rudolph,” he said, “that, after all, I shall have to take that train alone.”

Mr. Charteris continued, with a grimace:  “You have no notion, though, how annoying it is not to possess an iota of what is vulgarly considered manliness.  But what am I to do?  I was not born with the knack of enduring physical pain.  Oh, yes, I am a coward, if you like to put it nakedly; but I was born so, willy-nilly.  Personally, if I had been consulted in the matter, I would have preferred the usual portion of valor.  However! the sanctity of the hearth has been most edifyingly preserved—­and, after all, the woman is not worth squabbling about.”

There was exceedingly little of the mountebank in him now; he kicked Patricia’s portmanteau, frankly and viciously, as he stepped over it to lift his own.  Holding this in one hand, John Charteris spoke, honestly: