“He ought to _be_ here—he ought to help.”
I quickly rose, and I think I must have shown her a queerer face than
ever yet. “You see me asking him for a visit?” No, with her eyes on my
face she evidently couldn’t. Instead of it even—as a woman reads
another—she could see what I myself saw: his derision, his amusement,
his contempt for the breakdown of my resignation at being left alone
and for the fine machinery I had set in motion to attract his attention
to my slighted charms. She didn’t know—no one knew—how proud I had been
to serve him and to stick to our terms; yet she nonetheless took the
measure, I think, of the warning I now gave her. “If you should so lose
your head as to appeal to him for me—”
She was really frightened. “Yes, miss?”
“I would leave, on the spot, both him and you.”