Gilbert, astonished, got to the other side of the table.
"I thought we were through with all that!" he said. "What's the use of
harping on it?"
"You were wrong," answered Pell, coldly. "I am a business man, as I told
you before. I do one thing at a time." His lids half closed, his hands
clenched. He swerved abruptly on his wife. "Well?" he said. "Well?"
"You mean to say," said Gilbert, "that you took seriously what my doddering
old uncle said? I told you I thought he was crazy, and you seemed to agree
with me. What are you talking about now?"
Morgan Pell's steel-gray eyes fastened themselves on Jones, "I am talking
to my wife. I am not ready for you--yet. One thing at a time, you know."
He looked again at Lucia. "Well? I am waiting. Answer me: Do you love him?"
Alarm at Pell's manner was rife in the room. What a brute he was, and how
terrible was his verbal attack!
Lucia could not trust herself to speak. She knew she would have to reply to
her husband's question, and though she knew her answer would be but a
monosyllable, she could not get it out.
"Well?" Pell repeated, and the word was like a hammer-blow.
"No!" Lucia managed to say.
The husband now turned on Gilbert.
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