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.
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