"Janet!" he said, and started toward her, but got no farther than the corner of the desk. The sight of her heaving breast, of the peculiar light that flashed from beneath her lashes stopped him suddenly. Her hands were in her pockets. "What is it?" he demanded stupidly.
But she continued to stand there, breathing so heavily that she could not speak. It was then that he became aware of an acute danger. He did not flinch.
"What is it?" he repeated.
Still she was silent. One hand was thrust deeper into its pocket, he saw a shudder run through her, and suddenly she burst into hysterical weeping, sinking into a chair. He stood for some moments helplessly regarding her before he gained the presence of mind to go to the door and lock it, returning to bend over her.
"Don't touch me!" she said, shrinking from him.
"For God's sake tell me what's the matter," he begged.
She looked up at him and tried to speak, struggling against the sobs that shook her.
"I--I came here to--to kill you--only I can't do it."
"To kill me!" he said, after a pause. In spite of the fact that he had half divined her intention, the words shocked him. Whatever else may be said of him, he did not lack courage, his alarm was not of a physical nature. Mingled with it were emotions he himself did not understand, caused by the unwonted sight of her loss of self-control, of her anger, and despair. "Why did you want to kill me?"
And again he had to wait for an answer.
"Because you've spoiled my life--because I'm going to have a child!"
"What do you mean? Are you?... it can't be possible."
"It is possible, it's true--it's true. I've waited and waited, I've suffered, I've almost gone crazy--and now I know. And I said I'd kill you if it were so, I'd kill myself--only I can't. I'm a coward." Her voice was drowned again by weeping.
A child! He had never imagined such a contingency! And as he leaned back against the desk, his emotions became chaotic. The sight of her, even as she appeared crazed by anger, had set his passion aflame--for the intensity and fierceness of her nature had always made a strong appeal to dominant qualities in Ditmar's nature. And then--this announcement!
Momentarily it turned his heart to water. Now that he was confronted by an exigency that had once vicariously yet deeply disturbed him in a similar affair of a friend of his, the code and habit of a lifetime gained an immediate ascendency--since then he had insisted that this particular situation was to be avoided above all others. And his mind leaped to possibilities. She had wished to kill him--would she remain desperate enough to ruin him? Even though he were not at a crisis in his affairs, a scandal of this kind would be fatal.
"I didn't know," he said desperately, "I couldn't guess. Do you think I would have had this thing happen to you? I was carried away--we were both carried away --"
"You planned it!" she replied vehemently, without looking up. "You didn't care for me, you only--wanted me."
"That isn't so--I swear that isn't so. I loved you I love you."
"Oh, do you think I believe that?" she exclaimed.
"I swear it--I'll prove it!" he protested. Still under the influence of an acute anxiety, he was finding it difficult to gather his wits, to present his case. "When you left me that day the strike began--when you left me without giving me a chance--you'll never know how that hurt me."
"You'll never know how it hurt me!" she interrupted.
"Then why, in God's name, did you do it? I wasn't myself, then, you ought to have seen that. And when I heard from Caldwell here that you'd joined those anarchists--"
"They're no worse than you are--they only want what you've got," she said.
He waved this aside. "I couldn't believe it--I wouldn't believe it until somebody saw you walking with one of them to their Headquarters. Why did you do it?"
"Because I know how they feel, I sympathize with the strikers, I want them to win--against you!" She lifted her head and looked at him, and in spite of the state of his feelings he felt a twinge of admiration at her defiance.
"Because you love me!" he said.
"Because I hate you," she answered.
And yet a spark of exultation leaped within him at the thought that love had caused this apostasy. He had had that suspicion before, though it was a poor consolation when he could not reach her. Now she had made it vivid. A woman's logic, or lack of logic--her logic.
"Listen!" he pleaded. "I tried to forget you--I tried to keep myself going all the time that I mightn't think of you, but I couldn't help thinking of you, wanting you, longing for you. I never knew why you left me, except that you seemed to believe I was unkind to you, and that something had happened. It wasn't my fault--" he pulled himself up abruptly.
"I found out what men were like," she said. "A man made my sister a woman of the streets--that's what you've done to me."
He winced. And the calmness she had regained, which was so characteristic of her, struck him with a new fear.
"I'm not that kind of a man," he said.
But she did not answer. His predicament became more trying.
"I'll take care of you," he assured her, after a moment. "If you'll only trust me, if you'll only come to me I'll see that no harm comes to you."
She regarded him with a sort of wonder--a look that put a fine edge of dignity and scorn to her words when they came.
"I told you I didn't want to be taken care of--I wanted to kill you, and kill myself. I don't know why I can't what prevents me." She rose.
"But I'm not going to trouble you any more--you'll never hear of me again."
She would not trouble him, she was going away, he would never hear of her again! Suddenly, with the surge of relief he experienced, came a pang.
