"Rubbish!" said Sylvia. "He'll be like a lamb when we meet. If he hadn't fired at the ceiling I should have felt much more alarmed for the safety of my head." "But, Sylvia," Lily entreated. "You don't know what he's like. Once, when he thought a man nudged me, he came home and tore all the towels to pieces with his teeth. The servant nearly cried when she saw the room in the morning. It was simply covered with bits of towel, and he swallowed one piece and nearly choked. You don't know what he's like. I can manage him, but nobody else could." Here was a new Lily indeed, who dared to claim that she could manage somebody of whom Sylvia must be afraid. She challenged Lily to say when she had ever known her to flinch from an encounter with a man. "But, my dear, Manuel isn't English. When he's in one of those rages he's not like a human being at all. You can't soothe him by arguing with him. You have to calm him without talking." "What do you use? A red-hot poker?" Lily became agitated at Sylvia's obstinacy, and, regardless of her jewels, which tinkled down into a heap on the floor, she jumped out of bed and implored her not to stay. "I want to know one or two things before I go," Sylvia said, and was conscious of taking advantage of Lily's alarm to make her speak the truth, owing to the lack of time for the invention of lies. "Do you love this man?" "Yes, in a way I do." "You could be happy married to him?" "Yes, when I've won five thousand pounds." "He cheats for you?" Lily hesitated. "Never mind," Sylvia went on. "I know he does." "Oh, my dear," Lily murmured, biting her lip. "Then other people might notice. Never mind. I ought to finish to-night. The boat sails the day after to-morrow." "And what about me?" Sylvia asked. Lily looked shamefaced for a moment, but the natural optimism of the gambler quickly reasserted itself. "I thought you wouldn't like to break your contract." "My contract," Sylvia repeated, bitterly. "What about---- Oh, but how foolish I am. You dear unimaginative creature!" "I'm not at all unimaginative," Lily interposed, quickly. "One of the reasons why I want to leave Brazil is because the black people here make me nervous. That's why I left our flat. I didn't know what to do. I was so frightened. I think I'm very imaginative. You got ill. What was I to do?" She asked this like an accusation, and Sylvia knew that it would be impossible to make her see any other point of view. "Besides, it was your fault I started to gamble. I watched you on the boat." "But you were going away without a word to me?" Sylvia could not refrain from tormenting herself with this question. "Oh no, I was coming to say good-by, but you don't understand how closely he watches me."