She could not think how to fight it. After being
simply dubious throughout a long pause, she in the
end went into a great rage. She glared furiously at
Marjory, dropped her arm as if it had burned her and
moved down upon Coleman. She must have reflected
that at any rate she could make him wriggle. When
she was come near to him, she called out: "Rufus!"
In her tone was all the old insolent statement of
ownership. Coleman might have been a poodle. She
knew how to call his same in a way that was anything
less than a public scandal. On this occasion everybody
looked at him and then went silent, as people
awaiting the startling denouement of a drama.
" Rufus! " She was baring his shoulder to show the
fieur-de-lis of the criminal. The students gaped.
Coleman's temper was, if one may be allowed to
speak in that way, broken loose inside of him. He
could hardly beeathe; he felt that his body was about
to explode into a thousand fragments. He simply
snarled out " What? " Almost at once he saw that
she had at last goaded him into making a serious
tactical mistake. It must be admitted that it is only
when the relations between a man and a woman are
the relations of wedlock, or at least an intimate
resemblance to it, that the man snarls out " What? " to
the woman. Mere lovers say " I beg your pardon ? "
It is only Cupid's finished product that spits like a
cat. Nora Black had called him like a wife, and he
had answered like a husband.
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