Steve was quiet.
Mrs. Porter returned to Kirk.
Of all her burning words, Kirk had not heard one. His eyes had never
left Ruth's. Like her, he was trying to read a message from a face that
seemed only cold. In this crisis of their two lives he had no thought
for anybody but her. He had a sense of great issues, of being on the
verge of the tremendous; but his brain felt numbed and heavy. He could
not think. He could see nothing except her eyes.
His inattention seemed to communicate itself to Mrs. Porter. She rapped
imperatively upon the table for the third time. The report galvanized
Steve, as, earlier in the day, a similar report had galvanized Mr.
Penway; but Kirk did not move.
'Mr. Winfield!'
Still Kirk made no sign that he had heard her. It was discouraging, but
Lora Delane Porter was not made of the stuff that yields readily to
discouragement. She resumed:
'As for this wretched girl', she indicated the silent Mamie with a wave
of her hand, 'this abandoned creature whom you have led astray, this
shameless partner of your......'
'Say!'
The exclamation came from Steve, and it stopped Mrs. Porter like a
bullet. To her this interruption from one whom she had fallen upon and
wiped out resembled a voice from the tomb. She was not accustomed to
having her victims rise up and cut sharply, even peremptorily, into the
flow of her speech. Macbeth, confronted by the ghost of Banquo, may
have been a little more taken aback, but not much.
She endeavoured to quell Steve with a glance, but it was instantly
apparent that he was immune for the time being to quelling glances. His
brown eyes were fixed upon her in a cold stare which she found
arresting and charged with menace. His chin protruded and his upper lip
was entirely concealed behind its fellow in a most uncomfortable
manner.
She had never had the privilege of seeing Steve in the active exercise
of his late profession, or she would have recognized the look. It was
the one which proclaims the state of mind commonly known as 'being
fighting mad,' and in other days had usually heralded a knock-out for
some too persistent opponent.
'Say, ma'am, you want to cut that out. That line of talk don't go.'
Great is the magic of love that can restore a man in an instant of time
from being an obsequious wreck to a thing of fire and resolution. A
moment before Steve's only immediate object in life had been to stay
quiet and keep out of the way as much as possible. He had never been a
man of ready speech in the presence of an angry woman; words
intimidated him as blows never did, especially the whirl of words which
were at Lora Delane Porter's command in moments of emotion.
But this sudden onslaught upon Mamie, innocent Mamie who had done
nothing to anybody, scattered his embarrassment and filled him with
much the same spirit which sent bantam-weight knights up against
heavy-weight dragons in the Middle Ages. He felt inspired.
