"
"No, Sargent."
"Let me pass, Rose!"
"I will not. Sargent, I will not let you make an absolute fool of yourself
before my friends before you give me a chance to explain--"
"I will, I tell you! I will! _Let me go!_"
They were struggling undignifiedly in the center of the room, her firm
strong hands tight over his wrists as he pawed at her, trying to wrench
himself away. Mr. Piper was a gentleman no longer--nor a business man--nor
a figure of nation-wide importance--he was only a small furious figure with
a face as grey and distorted as a fighting ape's who was clutching at the
woman in front of him as if he would like to tear her with his hands. A red
swimming had fallen over his eyes--all he knew was that the woman-person in
front of him had fooled him more bitterly and commonly than anyone had been
fooled since Adam--and that if he could not get loose in some way or other
from the hateful strength that was holding him, he would burst into the
disgusting tears of a vicious small boy who is being firmly held down and
spanked by an older girl. Grammar, manners and sense had gone from him as
completely as if he had never possessed them.
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