Her face got brick-red with a heavy, smouldering flush, she looked towards Elinor with angry eyes, and then muttered:
“It was a rotten thing to say!” Turning towards him again, she said in a low tone:
“Do you mean, then, that you’ve given up the trip? You’re not coming with us?”
“That’s what I’ve told you, isn’t it?” he said harshly. “What else do you expect?”
She looked at him sullenly, angrily, a moment longer; and suddenly her eyes were wet with tears.
“It’s going to be a fine trip for me, isn’t it?” she muttered. “I’ve got a lot to look forward to, haven’t I?”
“Oh, you’ll get along, I guess,” he jeered. “I don’t think you’re going to miss my company very much.” And felt a desperate hope that she would.
“Oh, it’s going to be charming, charming, isn’t it?” she said bitterly. “Nothing to do but hold down the back seat alone with the dog—while they”—she nodded towards Elinor and Starwick—“are up there having their wonderful talks together—leaving me alone to watch the dog while they stay out all night together—oh, it’s going to be simply wonderful, isn’t it?” she said with an infuriated sarcasm.
“So that’s the reason I was wanted?” he said. “To keep you company on the back seat! To take the place of the dog! To make it look good, eh?—to make the party look a little more respectable back in Boston when they hear of Mr. Starwick and his two lady friends! That’s why you wanted me, is it? To fill in extra space—to be a kind of damned male nurse and chaperon to you and Elinor and Frank Starwick—”
She took a step towards him and stopped, her hands clenched beside her, her eyes shot with tears, her big body trembling for a moment with baffled anger and despair.
“God-damn you!” she said in a small, choked voice; and, her hands still clenched, she turned away abruptly to hide her tears.
At this moment Starwick approached and, his ruddy face flushing as he spoke, he said quietly, casually:
“Ann, look! Will you let me have a thousand francs?”
She turned round, glared at Starwick for a moment with angry, reddened eyes and then, to his astonishment and her own, boomed out comically and in an enraged tone:
“No—o!”
