The Equinox (Volume I, Number VI)

THE ORDEAL OF IDA PENDRAGON her face. His long arms wound convulsively round her. His eyes seemed to start from his head; foam gathered on his dry lips ; he could not speak. The breath came through his dilated nostrils hot and fierce; one would have said a bull in the arena. She disengaged herself. “ You see, he wants to marry me. I love him I I want to be with him for ever. But—" the great fighter was limp in his chair. " It is difficult,” she went on. “ There are complica- tions. My mother . . ." Edgar Rolles detected the false note in her voice. He understood. He was angry, angry at his implication in such an affair. His teeth snapped. " Yes ? " he said, though he wanted to shout, to break the furniture. ”We cannot marry," she went on, and this time the mordant malice almost tore her silky pathos with a rending shriek. “So, Joe . . .” She turned her great eyes on him, lustrous, pleading. " Ι want you ! " was all he said. But his voice was like the low and terrible cry of an elephant. “You would not make me”—she hesitated a moment— “you would not make me—z'mþm'e?" Her inflection was low and tremulous; but the Caucasians understood. It was like the scream of the typhoon, ripping the sails. Ninon broke into a high hysterical sob of utmost laughter. She had not seen such a comedy since—she had never seen such a comedy. What a dull brute that black creature was I Edgar Rolles rose with a jerk. He did not know what was coming. And then light dawned in the dense brain of the African. I41