Last night she had not spoken of it to him; had scarcely spoken to him at all, as he had been morosely silent to her.  She had been shocked, frightened by his violence, yet she knew that his violence had been honest violence, perpetrated because he believed her welfare demanded it.  She did not feel toward him the aversion that the average girl might have felt for one who precipitated her into such a scene. ...  She was accustomed to violence and to the atmosphere of violence.

When she and Dulac arrived at the Frazer cottage, he had helped her to alight.  Then he uttered a rude apology, but a sincere one—­ according to his lights.

“I’m sorry I had to do it with you watching,” he said.  Then, curtly, “Go to bed now.”

Clearly he suspected her of no wrongdoing, of no intention toward future wrongdoing.  She was a victim.  She was a pigeon fascinated by a serpent.

Now she went to her room, and remained there until the supper hour.

When she and her mother and Dulac were seated at the table her mother began a characteristic Jeremiad.  “I hope you ain’t coming down with a spell of sickness.  Seems like sickness in the family’s about the only thing I’ve been spared, though other things worse has been aplenty.  Here we are just in a sort of a breathing spell, and you begin to look all peeked and home from work, with maybe losing your place, for employers is hard without any consideration, and food so high and all.  I wasn’t born to no ease, nor any chance of looking forward like some women, though doing my duty at all times to the best of my ability.  And now you on the verge of a run of the fever, with nobody can say how long in bed, and doctors and medicines and worry. ...”

“I’m not going to be ill, mother,” Ruth said.  “Please don’t worry about me.”

“If a mother can’t worry about her own daughter, then I’d like to know what she can do,” said Mrs. Frazer, with the air of one suffering meekly a studied affront.

Ruth turned to Dulac.  “Before you go downtown,” she said, “I want to talk to you.”

Dulac had not hoped to escape a reckoning with Ruth, and now he supposed she was demanding it.  Well, as well now as later, if the thing had to be.  He was a trifle sulky about it; perhaps, now that his blind rage had subsided, not wholly satisfied with himself and his conduct.  “All right,” he said, and went silently on with his meal.  After a time he pushed back his chair.  “I’ve got a meeting downtown,” he said to Ruth, paving the way for a quick escape.

“Maybe what I have to say,” she said, gravely, “will be as important as your meeting,” and she preceded him into the little parlor.

His attitude was defensive; he expected to be called on for explanations, to be required to soothe resentment; his mental condition was more or less that of a schoolboy expecting a ragging.

Ruth did not begin at once, but walked over to the window, and, leaning her elbow against the frame, pressed her forehead against the cool glass.  She wanted to clear and make direct and coherent her thoughts.  She wanted to express well, leaving no ground for misunderstanding of herself or her motives, what she had to say.  Then she turned, and began abruptly; began in a way that left Dulac helplessly surprised, for it was not the attack he expected.