And her nearness maddened him. All the starved and pent-up passion that was in him flamed and blazed. It blinded him and buzzed in his ears. He held her so tight and so hungrily that she could hardly breathe. She was his, this girl. She had called him, and he had answered, and she was his wife. He had the right to her by law and nature. He adored her and had let her off and tried to be patient and win his way to her by love and gentleness. But with his lips within an inch of her sweet, impertinent face, and the scent of her hair in his brain, and the wound that she had opened again sapping his blood, he held her to his heart and charged the crowd to the beat of the music, like a man intoxicated, like a man heedless of his surroundings. He didn't give a curse who overheard what he said, or saw the look in his eyes. She had turned him down, this half-wife, on the plea of weariness; and as soon as he had left the house to go and eat his heart out in the hub of that swarming lonely city, she had darted out with this doll-man whom he wouldn't have her touch with the end of a pole. There was a limit to all things, and he had come to it. "You're coming home," he said. "Marty, but I can't. Gilbert Palgrave--" "Gilbert Palgrave be damned. You're coming home, I tell you, if I have to carry you out." She laughed. This was a new Marty, a high-handed, fiery Marty--one who must not be encouraged. "Are you often like this?" she asked. "Be careful. I've had enough, and if you don't want me to smash this place up and cause a riot, you'll do what I tell you." Her eyes flashed back at him, and two angry spots of color came into her cheeks. He was out of control. She realized that. She had never in her life seen any one so out of control--unaccountable as she found it. That he would smash up the place and cause a riot she knew instinctively. She put up no further opposition. If anything were to be avoided, it was a scene, and in her mind's eye she could see herself being carried out by this plunging boy, with a yard of stocking showing and the laughter of every one ringing in her ears. No, no, not that! She began to look for Palgrave, with her mind all alert and full of a mischievous desire to turn the tables on Martin. He must be shown quickly that if any one gave orders, she did. He danced her to the edge of the floor, led her panting through the tables to the foot of the stairs and with his hand grasping her arm like a vice, guided her up to the place where ladies left their wraps. "We're going home," he said, "to have things out. I'll wait here." Then he called a boy and told him to get his hat and coat and gave him his check.