"Dare? I will dare to turn you out of this house. I have chosen the man, and made love to him as his equal. His scruples as your friend bound him. They do not bind me. Thank yourself if this means a tragedy. You challenged the world in your strength. You proclaimed freedom in comradeship. Under the old laws of life, this man would have cut his right arm off rather than betray you. You invited him here. Has he no rights--have I no rights you must respect under such conditions?"
He ignored her question and continued to look at her in stubborn, curious silence.
"Do you know what you are saying?" he asked, brusquely.
"Certainly. Repeating to you the secrets you have taught me."
"Well, I"ll teach you something more before this drama has ended, young woman," he said, with a touch of ice in his tones.
She gave an angry toss of her head and cried with sneering emphasis:
"Indeed!"
"Yes. I"ll show you, if you push me to it, what a return to the freedom of nature really means. I, too, have had some illuminations in the past months."
She laughed again.
"Ah, Frank, you are a born preacher, and your threats are scarcely melodramatic; they are merely idiotic."
The gray eyes grew somber. He drew his right arm up until its muscles stood a huge twisted knot, fairly bursting through his sleeve, seized her hand roughly and held it with iron violence on his arm.
"It"s worth your while to take note of that," he said, steadily disregarding her angry effort to withdraw her hand. "It"s made out of threads of steel--that muscle. Few men are my equal. I am talking to you in the insolence of physical strength that proclaims me a king--a savage viking, if you like, but none the less a king."
She attempted again to free her arm from his brutal grip.
"Be still," he growled. "I feel throbbing in my veins to-day the blood of a thousand savage ancestors who made love to their women with a club and dragged them to their caves by the hair--yes, and more, the beat of impulses that surged there with wild power before man became a man."
With a sob of rage, she tore herself from his grasp.
"Oh, you brute!" she cried, stiffening her figure to its full height, her dark-red hair falling in ruffling ringlets about her ears and neck, as she rubbed her arm where his hand had left the blue finger-prints.
"I warn you," he said, his voice sinking lower and lower into a mere growl. "I am your husband. You are my wife. Whatever may have been my dreams, I"m awake now. Man once aroused is an animal with teeth and claws and t.i.tanic impulses, huge and fateful forces that crush and kill all that comes between him and his two fierce elemental desires, hunger and love."
The splendid form of the woman shook with anger. Her eyes ablaze, her cheeks scarlet, her voice sobbing and breaking with wrath, she said:
"And did you call it that when you threw your little wife into the street for me? Is this your boasted freedom--freedom for man"s desires alone?"
"I warn you," he repeated, ignoring her question. "You will bring that man into this house again at the peril of his life and yours."
"Yes, you are talking to a woman now," she hissed. "Babbler, preacher, parson, coward! Why did you not say this to him?"
"I"ll say it in due time," he answered, deliberately folding his arms. "In the meantime, I will inform you, as you are in search of a master, that I am your master and the master of this house."
With a stamp of her foot, she swept from the room, throwing over her shoulder the challenge:
"We shall see!"
CHAPTER XXIX
BULLDOG AND MASTIFF
Gordon remained in the house during the entire afternoon.
Kate called a boy and sent two messages. One of them summoned her lawyer, the same polite gentleman who had brought the wonderful message from that house a few years before.
At 6:30 Gordon went to his study. The wind had risen steadily and was blowing now a gale from the northwest, and he could feel the cut of hail mixed with the raindrops. It was fearful under foot, and he knew his crowd would be small.
His mind was in a whirl of nervous rage.
"Bah! It"s this infernal storm in the air," he cried, in disgust.
A feeling of suffocation at last mastered him. He turned the service over to an a.s.sistant, left the Temple, and returned to Gramercy Park with feverish step.
Overman was in the library in earnest consultation with Kate.
They both sprang to their feet as he hurriedly entered, and he could see that Kate was trembling with excitement and dread.
The banker was cool and insolent.
Gordon walked quickly to Kate"s side and spoke in icy tones of command.
"Go to your room. I have something to say to this gentleman it will not be necessary for you to hear."
She hesitated and glanced inquiringly at Overman.
"Certainly; it"s best," came his low, quick answer.
The hesitation and appeal to the new master were not lost on Gordon.
He squared his gigantic shoulders, and wet his lips as if to cool them.
"Very well," she said, facing Gordon. "Before I go I wish to announce to you that it will not be convenient for you to spend another night in this house. If you do not go, I will."
He bowed politely and waved her away with a graceful gesture.
"That will do. I do not care to hear any more."
Kate turned and quickly left the room.
"Won"t you sit down?" Gordon said, offering Overman a chair with excessive courtesy.