George sprang up. At the sound of her voice every
nerve in his body danced in mad exhilaration.
He was another man. Depression fell from him
like a garment. He perceived that he had misjudged
all sorts of things. The evening, for instance,
was a splendid evening—not one of those
awful dry, baking evenings which make you feel you
can’t breathe, but pleasantly moist and full
of a delightfully musical patter of rain. And
the barn! He had been all wrong about the barn.
It was a great little place, comfortable, airy, and
cheerful. What could be more invigorating than
that smell of hay? Even the rats, he felt, must
be pretty decent rats, when you came to know them.
“I’m here!”
Maud advanced quickly. His eyes had grown accustomed
to the murk, and he could see her dimly. The
smell of her damp raincoat came to him like a breath
of ozone. He could even see her eyes shining in
the darkness, so close was she to him.
“I hope you’ve not been waiting long?”
George’s heart was thundering against his ribs.
He could scarcely speak. He contrived to emit
a No.
“I didn’t think at first I could get away.
I had to . . .” She broke off with a cry.
The rat, fond of exercise like all rats, had made
another of its excitable sprints across the floor.
A hand clutched nervously at George’s arm, found
it and held it. And at the touch the last small
fragment of George’s self-control fled from
him. The world became vague and unreal. There
remained of it but one solid fact—the fact
that Maud was in his arms and that he was saying a
number of things very rapidly in a voice that seemed
to belong to somebody he had never met before.
With a shock of dismay so abrupt and overwhelming
that it was like a physical injury, George became
aware that something was wrong. Even as he gripped
her, Maud had stiffened with a sharp cry; and now
she was struggling, trying to wrench herself free.
She broke away from him. He could hear her breathing
hard.
“You—you——”
She gulped.
“Maud!”
“How dare you!”
There was a pause that seemed to George to stretch
on and on endlessly. The rain pattered on the
leaky roof. Somewhere in the distance a dog howled
dismally. The darkness pressed down like a blanket,
stifling thought.
“Good night, Mr. Bevan.” Her voice
was ice. “I didn’t think you were—that
kind of man.”
She was moving toward the door; and, as she reached
it, George’s stupor left him. He came back
to life with a jerk, shaking from head to foot.
All his varied emotions had become one emotion—a
cold fury.
“Stop!”
Maud stopped. Her chin was tilted, and she was
wasting a baleful glare on the darkness.
“Well, what is it?”
Her tone increased George’s wrath. The
injustice of it made him dizzy. At that moment
he hated her. He was the injured party. It
was he, not she, that had been deceived and made a
fool of.
