The pit of his
passion was bottomless, into which he was tumbling with the icy laughter
of breaking glass.
Then he struck out against the swinging door so that it ripped outward
with a sough of stale air, striking Josie Drew, as she approached it
from the room side, so violently that her teeth bit down into her lips
and the tattling blood began to flow.
"Nicky! It's a mistake. I thought--my sister--It got so late--you
wouldn't go. Go now! The key--turning--Nervous--silly--mistake. Go--"
He laughed, something exhilarant in his boiling over, and even in her
sudden terror of him she looked at his bare teeth and felt the unnice
beauty of the storm.
"Nicky," she half cried, "don't be--foolish! I--"
And then he struck her across the lip so that her teeth cut in again.
"There is some one coming here to-night," he said, with his smile still
very white.
She sat on the couch, trying to bravado down her trembling.
"And what if there is? He'll beat you up for this! You fool! I've tried
to explain a dozen times.
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