"
"I should quit in your place," Grange remarked, with his eyes on the
dazzling sea.
"No doubt you would," Nick responded dryly. "And what should you
advise, Muriel?"
The question was unexpected, but she had herself in hand, and answered
it instantly. "I certainly shouldn't advise you to quit."
He raised his eyebrows. "Might one ask why?"
She was quite ready for him, inspired by an overmastering longing
to hurt him if that were possible. "Because if you gave up your
profession, you would be nothing but a vacuum. If the chance to
destroy life were put out of your reach, you would simply cease to
exist."
She spoke rapidly, her voice pitched very low. She was trembling all
over, and her hands were clenched under the table to hide it.
The laugh with which Nick received her words jarred intolerably upon
her. She heard nothing in it but deliberate cruelty.
"Great Lucifer!" he said. "You have got me under the microscope with
a vengeance. But you can't see through me, you know. I have a reverse
side. Hadn't you better turn me over and look at that? There may be
sorcery and witchcraft there as well."
There might be. She could well have imagined it. But these were lesser
things in which she had no concern. She turned his thrust aside with
disdain.
"I am not sufficiently interested," she said.
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