Paradise Garden Part 61

"Oh," she started back at that and the venturesome Lloyd took a pace forward.

"I say, Benham, I--" He got no further, for Jerry without even looking at him, swept his left arm around, the gesture of a giant bothered by a troublesome insect. But it caught the fellow full in the chest, and sent him reeling backward. Jerry's business just now was with Marcia Van Wyck.

"You understand what I mean," he went on quickly. "You've played false with me. You've always played false. I saw you there this morning kissing this man, the way you kissed me, the way you kiss others for all that I know."

"You're mad. You insult me." She rose, pale and trembling, but facing him hardily.

"No, I'm not mad. Nothing that I can say can insult you."

"Chan!" She appealed.

It was a fatal mistake, for at the word Lloyd came forward again, bent on making some show of resistance. Jerry turned on him with a snarl, for the fellow had foolishly put up his hands. A few blows pa.s.sed and then--Jerry told what happened rather apologetically--"It was a pity, Roger. It wasn't altogether his fault, but he _is_ a bounder. My fist struck his face, seemed to smear it, literally, all into a blot of red. It wasn't like hitting a man in the ring, it was like--like poking a bag full of dirty linen. The whole fabric seemed to give way.

He toppled back, turned a complete somersault and collapsed."

I made no comment. I already knew that Lloyd hadn't been killed. The girl Marcia seemed stricken dumb for a moment and found her voice only when Jerry turned toward her again.

"Jerry," she cried. "It is horrible. You're a brute--beast--"

Jerry only pointed at the prostrate figure slowly struggling to its knees.

"Go and kiss him," he cried. "Go. Kiss him now. He's on his knees to you, waiting for you."

While they watched, Lloyd got to his feet, turned one look of terror in Jerry's direction and then fled blindly into the woods, like one possessed of a devil.

Jerry laughed. It couldn't have been very pretty laughter, for the girl covered her face with her hands and shrank away from him.

"How _could_ you?" she stammered. "How _could_ you?"

"You were mine. He wanted you."

"Jerry--I--. It's all a mistake. You thought you saw us. I haven't kissed--"

"You lie," he came a pace toward her. "I saw you. I'm not a fool--not any longer."

Her gaze met his and fell. There was something in his expression, something of the primitive that tore away all subterfuge.

But she was not without courage.

"And if I did kiss him--what then?" she asked defiantly. "I'll kiss as I please."

"_Will_ you?" He caught at her wrist but she eluded him.

"Yes, I will. What right have you to tell me what I shall do or not do? I'll choose my friends as I please and kiss them as I please, Chan or anyone!"

She had not gauged his temper. Perhaps she hadn't read the meaning in his eyes. Perhaps she thought that she could elude him or that the fact that she was on her own land gave her a fancied sense of security.

"You'll not," he cried.

"I will. What right have you to question me? You can amuse yourself with Una."

"Stop!" he thundered.

But she had found her spirit and her confidence in her ability to win him to gentleness by one means or another was returning to her. She was bold now but prepared to melt if the need required it.

"I will not stop," she cried. "You and Una. What right have you to criticize me for what you yourself--"

She stopped abruptly, for he caught her by the arm and held her. Jerry said that even yet he was timid of her delicacy--fearful of the things he had thought her to be. But he still held her, though she struggled to get away from him.

"Let me go, Jerry. You're hurting me. Please let me go."

She felt the first touch of his imperviousness when he refused to release her and chose to change her tone.

"Please let me go, Jerry," she pleaded softly. "Do you think you are treating me kindly, after all--all that is between us? I don't care for Chan--I don't, Jerry. Let me go."

In his eyes she read the new judgment.

"Then you're worse than I supposed," he muttered.

"Worse! Oh, Jerry. Don't look so--so coldly. It hurts me terribly. I must go. I can't stand your looking at me in that way."

She tried to move away, I think she had every intention of taking to her heels if Jerry had only given her the chance. But he wouldn't. He held her and kept her close beside him. He was hurting her wrist cruelly.

"Let me go," she cried, struggling anew.

Her resistance aroused him again. The animal fury of battle had not died out of his eyes. He did not know what he intended to do with her--had no plan, no purpose, he said. What plan or purpose could he have had unless murder? And even in his madness I'm sure that that never occurred to him. But his blood was hot and his anger and bitterness overwhelming. His fear of her delicacy diminished with her struggles, for her resistance inflamed him. He did not know, nor did she just then, that the animal instinct to conquer was what she had taught him, and that the turgid stream of his blood was finding new strength and unreason, a strange new impetus in every struggle. She saw her danger and was powerless to prevent it. She looked over her shoulder helplessly in the direction in which Chan Lloyd had vanished and saw no help from there. Jerry's great strength had never seemed so terrible as now. He caught her by the shoulders and held her, shook her, I think, a little, as one would shake a child, while she still struggled in his grasp. In a moment his grasp loosened a little, then tightened again, for the contact of his fingers with her warm skin was awaking the demon in him, the dormant devil she had put there.

"Oh, you're hurting me so, Jerry--so terribly."

But he did not even hear her voice. His eyes were speaking to hers, holding them with a deathly fascination. If fear was her pa.s.sion she was drinking it now to the full--fear and the sense of the ruthless power and dominion in this madman of her own creation. Her hands clasped his shoulders.

"Jerry!" she screamed. "Don't look at me like that. Your eyes burn me."

"Into your soul--I will burn it--blot it out."

"Jerry, forgive me," she sobbed. "I love you."

"You lie."

"I love you. Forgive me!"

"No. You lie!"

Her arms went around his neck. And he crushed her to him, all the length of them in contact. She struggled faintly but her lips sought his in a despairing hope of pity. She found the lips, but no pity. The breath was almost gone from her body. She struggled, fighting hard, breathing his name in little panting sobs. She too was mad now, as much of an animal as Jerry, her blood coursing furiously. Her terror of herself must have been greater even than her terror of him, for she was quivering--shaken by the terrible gusts of his pa.s.sion.

Suddenly she felt herself released, thrust from him. His fingers bruised the tender flesh of her shoulders but his eyes bruised her more.

"Jerry!"

His hands had caught the two sides of the flimsy s.h.i.+rt-waist at the breast and torn it aside, off her shoulders, off her arms.