“Hold your peace, woman,” he interrupted, thundering, and silenced her by his sudden show of passion. He advanced upon her, so that she recoiled in some alarm, yet bridling even then. Then as suddenly he checked, curbed himself, and laughed. Forth from his pocket he lugged the heavy ducal purse, slid back the gold rings that bound it and brought the broad yellow pieces into view at its gaping mouth.
“What is the total of this score of yours?” he asked contemptuously, in the remnants of his anger. “Name it, take your money, and give me peace.”
But she was no longer thinking of her score. She was stricken with amazement at the sight of the purse he held, and the gold with which it bulged. Round-eyed she stared at it, and then at him. And then, because she could not conjecture the source of this sudden wealth, she must assume the worst, with the readiness to which such minds as hers are prone. The suspicion narrowed her blue eyes; it settled into conviction, and fetched an unpleasant curl to the lips of her broad mouth.
“And how come you by this gold?” she asked him, sinisterly quiet.
“I thought you was above purse-cutting,” she said, mightily disdainful. “But it seems I was as deceived in you there as in other ways.”
“Why, you impudent bawd!” he roared in his rage, and turned her livid by the epithet.
“You vagrant muck-rake, is that a word for an honest woman?”
“Honest, you thieving drab! Do you boast yourself honest? Your cheating score gives the lie to that. Give me the total of it, that I may pay the swindling sum, and shake the dust of your tavern from my heels.”
That, as you realize, was but the beginning of a scene of which I have no mind to give you all the details. Some of them are utterly unprintable. Her voice shrilled up like an oyster-woman’s, drawing the attention of the few who occupied the common room, and fetching Tim the drawer in alarm to the door of the little parlour.
And for all his anger, Colonel Holles began to be vaguely alarmed, for his conscience, as you know, was not altogether easy, and appearances might easily be construed against him.
“You thieving, brazen traitor,” she was bawling. “Do you think to come roaring it in here at me, you that have turned my reputable house into a den of treason! I’ll learn you manners, you impudent gallow’s-bird.” And she then caught sight of Tim’s scared face looking round the opening door. “Tim, fetch the constable,” she bawled. “The gentleman shall shift his lodgings to Newgate, which is better suited to his kind. Fetch the constable, I tell you. Run, lad.”