This man--the man inside the cab--cast oft his stiff
placidity and behaved like an animal. I don't mean it in an offensive
sense. What he did was to give way to an instinctive panic. Like some
wild creature scared by the first touch of a net falling on its back, old
de Barral began to struggle, lank and angular, against the empty air--as
much of it as there was in the cab--with staring eyes and gasping mouth
from which his daughter shrank as far as she could in the confined space.
"Stop the cab. Stop him I tell you. Let me get out!" were the strangled
exclamations she heard. Why? What for? To do what? He would hear
nothing. She cried to him "Papa! Papa! What do you want to do?" And
all she got from him was: "Stop. I must get out. I want to think. I
must get out to think."
It was a mercy that he didn't attempt to open the door at once. He only
stuck his head and shoulders out of the window crying to the cabman. She
saw the consequences, the cab stopping, a crowd collecting around a
raving old gentleman . . . In this terrible business of being a woman so
full of fine shades, of delicate perplexities (and very small rewards)
you can never know what rough work you may have to do, at any moment.
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