He noted that Roberts was slowly losing control. There was a blazing quality of anger creeping into her eyes.
“Lieutenant, she regarded that man as her tame tiger. You realize how strong he must have been physically.”
“Very strong.”
“It used to please her to control him—you know the way it’s commonly expressed—with a ‘word.’ ”
“I shouldn’t exactly say that she had succeeded.”
“The other women?”
“Yes.”
“She didn’t care about that. If anything, it satisfied her sense of power. She looked on them as a pack of shoddy substitutes that he could fool with, kick around, and treat terribly, if he liked. But she still remained the original—the unapproachable—the happy possessor of a tame tiger. He was always hers , you see, no matter what it was he had done. She’s had him crying.”
“That’s a little hard to believe.”
“It’s the truth. He took her in his hands one night and twisted her—just like that! She didn’t say a thing to him. For a month afterward he went around the house like a whipped cat. Then she said something kind to him, and he cried. I wish she was in hell.”
“Perhaps she is, Miss Roberts—just that.”
“She won’t stay in it long. Her kind doesn’t.”
Lieutenant Valcour held his eyes thoughtfully directed toward the bed.