That laugh levelled the last barrier of doubt and fear and nerved Sofia
finally to test the forlorn hope she had been nursing ever since Victor had
let her see a little way into his mind as to her fate.
Until he could reload, only the tradition of the sexes lent him theoretical
superiority; whereas he was in fact a man well on the thither side of
middle-age, his virility sapped by long indulgence of unbridled appetites;
while Sofia was a woman in the fullest flush of her first mature powers.
Gathering herself together, she inched forward and made ready to spring,
bear him down, overpower him--by some or any means put him hors de combat
long enough for her to fling a door open and herself out into the
street....
With squealing brakes the car shaved an acute corner and slid on locked
wheels to a dead halt so unexpected that it was Sofia who plunged
floundering to the floor, while Victor only by a minor miracle escaped
catapulting through the front windows.
The next instant, as Sofia struggled to her knees, the door behind her was
wrenched open from without and, at a sign from Victor, rough hands laid
hold of the girl and dragged her out bodily.
In a passion of despair, she lost her senses for a time and like a madwoman
fought, shrieking, biting, kicking, clawing, scratching....
With returning lucidity she found herself, panting and dishevelled, arms
pinned to her sides, struggling on for all that, being hustled by some half
a dozen men across a narrow sidewalk of uneven flagstones.
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