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PDF“What do you mean?” he said, jumping up. “You want! I’d like to know what’s got into you to-night.”
“Nothing’s got into me,” she said, flaming. “I want that money. You can do your swaggering afterwards.”
“Swaggering, eh! What! You’ll get nothing from me. What do you mean by your insinuations, anyhow?”
“Where were you last night?” she answered. The words were hot as they came. “Who were you driving with on Washington Boulevard? Who were you with at the theatre when George saw you? Do you think I’m a fool to be duped by you? Do you think I’ll sit at home here and take your ’too busys’ and ‘can’t come,’ while you parade around and make out that I’m unable to come? I want you to know that lordly airs have come to an end so far as I am concerned. You can’t dictate to me nor my children. I’m through with you entirely.”
“It’s a lie,” he said, driven to a corner and knowing no other excuse.
“Lie, eh!” she said, fiercely, but with returning reserve; “you may call it a lie if you want to, but I know.”
“It’s a lie, I tell you,” he said, in a low, sharp voice. “You’ve been searching around for some cheap accusation for months and now you think you have it. You think you’ll spring something and get the upper hand. Well, I tell you, you can’t. As long as I’m in this house I’m master of it, and you or any one else won’t dictate to me—do you hear?”
He crept toward her with a light in his eye that was ominous. Something in the woman’s cool, cynical, upper-handish manner, as if she were already master, caused him to feel for the moment as if he could strangle her.
She gazed at him—a pythoness in humor.
“I’m not dictating to you,” she returned; “I’m telling you what I want.”
The answer was so cool, so rich in bravado, that somehow it took the wind out of his sails. He could not attack her, he could not ask her for proofs. Somehow he felt evidence, law, the remembrance of all his property which she held in her name, to be shining in her glance. He was like a vessel, powerful and dangerous, but rolling and floundering without sail.
“And I’m telling you,” he said in the end, slightly recovering himself, “what you’ll not get.”
“We’ll see about it,” she said. “I’ll find out what my rights are. Perhaps you’ll talk to a lawyer, if you won’t to me.”
It was a magnificent play, and had its effect. Hurstwood fell back beaten. He knew now that he had more than mere bluff to contend with. He felt that he was face to face with a dull proposition. What to say he hardly knew. All the merriment had gone out of the day. He was disturbed, wretched, resentful. What should he do? “Do as you please,” he said, at last. “I’ll have nothing more to do with you,” and out he strode.
