And despite her tardy recovery and efforts to struggle, she was
carried swiftly away, a dozen paces or so, then tumbled bodily in upon the
floor of a motor-car.
The door closed as she tried to pick herself up, the smooth purring of the
motor became a leonine roar while she was still on her knees, gears
clashed, and the car leaped with a jerk that drove her headlong against the
cushions of the seat. Then the dome light was switched on, and she saw
Victor with a bleak face sitting over her, an automatic pistol naked in his
hand.
"Get up!" he said, grimly, "and if there's any thought of fight left in
you, think better of it, remember your mother paid with her life the price
of defying me, and yours means even less to me. Up with you and sit quietly
beside me--do you hear?"
He lent her a hand that wrenched her arm brutally and wrung a cry which
Victor mocked as Sofia fell upon the seat and cringed back into the corner.
For perhaps thirty seconds, while the car raced away down the drive, he
continued to hold her in the venom of her sneer; then his gaze veered
sharply, and leaning over he switched off the light.
With the body of the car again the dwelling-place of darkness, objects
beyond its rain-gemmed glass--the heads of the Chinese maid and chauffeur,
the twin piers of the nearing gateway--attained dense relief against the
blue-white glare of two broad headlight beams, that of the limousine boring
through the gateway to intersect at right angles that of another car
approaching on the highroad but as yet hidden by the wall of the park.
Pages:
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242