sent Trixie to bring her in. There was something a little deliberate
about it and exaggerated. They were getting it up--a demonstration in her
favour, a demonstration against John Conway.

She talked; but her thoughts ran by themselves on a line separate from
her speech.

"We got in six wounded." ... "That curé was there again. He was
splendid." ... They didn't know anything. They condemned him on the
evidence of her face, the face she had brought back to them, coming
straight from John. Her face had the mark of what he had done to
her.... "Much firing? Not so very much." ... She remembered what he had
said to her about her face. "Something's happened to it. Some cruelty.
Some damnable cruelty...."

"We'll have to go out there again."

They were all listening, and Alice Bartrum had made fresh tea for her;
McClane was setting down her cup. She was thirsty; she longed for the
fresh, fragrant tea; she was soothed by the kind, listening faces.
Suddenly they drew away; they weren't listening any more. John had come
into the room.

It flashed on her that all these people thought that John was her lover,
her lover in the way they understood love. They were looking at him as if
they hated him. But John's face was quiet and composed and somehow
triumphant; it held itself up against all the hostile faces; it fronted
McClane and his men as their equal; it was the face of a man who has
satisfied a lust. His whole body had a look of assurance and
accomplishment, as if his cruelty had given him power.