"'Leveraux!' said I indignantly, and springing from Perkins's embrace after I had kissed him in a way that set him shaking again, 'if you ever breathe a word of this, or annoy Mr. Perkins in any manner under heaven, I'll kill you! Go!'
"Poor Leveraux knew her cue and replied hotly, 'I'd kill myself before I'd do so disgraceful an act!' and then flounced out of the room."
"What a pair!" exclaimed Mrs. Winslow.
"He thought I was just perfectly splendid after that; kept coming and coming, indorsed me publicly, got wild over me; but I held him at arm's length for months, until I thought the man would really go crazy; and finally—well, you know I told you Daddy was an 'accommodation husband,' and if he hadn't been one after I had tripped up one of the richest men in all England, I would have just hired somebody to have dumped him into the Thames, sure!"
The sparkling flow of Miss Gray's experience was here interrupted by Mrs. Winslow's ordering another bottle of wine, and after the couple had partaken of the same, the spicy narrative was continued:
"But now comes the fun, Winslow. I can't tell you how my rope trick is done. I've got a little addition to it that makes it a regular sensation. It don't hurt me a particle, and allows the strongest men to pull away with all their might."
"I'd give a thousand dollars for it, Evalena," said her friend warmly.
"No good; no good for you," replied Miss Gray, critically looking over Mrs. Winslow's splendid physical completeness. "Fact is, Winslow, you aren't built exactly right for that kind of work. There's too much of you to do the rope trick with eminent success. I played Daddy as my brother, and myself for an innocent, so neatly that Perkins honestly thought he had made a wonderful conquest. He believed it all, for he was one of those honest fools—in fact, came near being too honest for me."
"Why, how?"
"Well, he installed me as his mistress in grand style; but, of course, I insisted in giving seances and compelled public recognition through his public recognition of my 'wonderful spirit-power.' The man was so infatuated that he bored me terribly with his visits. Why, I could hardly get time to attend to business. You know we always have a stock of ropes on hand in the seance-rooms, so that when any one objects to the one I ordinarily use, there are always other ropes at hand that I can use. One night some fellow broke my best rope, and the next day I was carelessly practising with another with my door unsecured. Perkins had been down to Brighton for a week or two, and of course had to rush over to see me the minute he got in London—to give me a 'happy surprise,' I suppose. There I sat when he suddenly bolted into the room and saw the thinness of the whole thing in an instant."