He had waited for the outbreak, and when
it did not come he suffered from the recoil of his own tension.
"For the Lord's sake, yell!" he implored.
She turned on him eyes of extraordinary abjection. She saw at last
where her lawlessness had brought her, and she despised herself. But
she did not love him any the more for understanding him. She saw at
last that one cannot be an honest woman without actually being--an
honest woman. She was going to get honesty if it broke a bone.
She told her accomplice: "I want you to go away and stay away.
Whatever you do, leave me be. There's nothing else you can do for me
except to take back all the stuff you've bought me. Give it to that
wife you love so much and wouldn't suspect no matter what she did.
You love her so much that you wouldn't let her go even if she wanted
to leave you. So go back to her and take these things to her with my
comp'ments."
Now it was Cheever who wanted to scream as he had not screamed
since he was the purple-faced boy who used to kick the floor and
his adoring nurse. But he had lost the safety valve of the scream.
He smothered.
When Zada began to peel off her rings and thrust them out to him he
swiftly turned on his heel and fled. He never knew whether Zada woke
the block with her howls or not when he left her forever.
He forgot to ask when he came back.
CHAPTER XII
First he went home to take his temper to Charity. On the way he
worked up a splendid rage at her for giving such a woman as Zada
grounds for gossip.
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