He came every day after that, as she bade him. She usually set the hour herself, and he arrived on the minute.
He sent her the magnificent skin of a tiger he had shot in India, and sometimes it pleased her to crouch on this, sensuously delighted by the contact, while remembering with a curious mingling of emotions how Kneedrock had declared her to be the reincarnation of just such another creature of the jungle, cruel, remorseless, blood-lusting—a tigress in the guise of a woman.
But she could never bear to look on that skin again after events that were soon to come.
Kneedrock himself never saw the rug.
As he was leaving one afternoon Andrews heard voices in the vestibule. The housemaid was sending away an insistent caller.
"Mrs. Darling doesn't see any one," he heard her say.
"But I'm sure she'll see me," the persistent male voice continued. "You just take her my card."
"She forbids me to fetch cards," rejoined the housemaid. "I'm sorry, sir."
He heard the jingle of silver coin. The caller was about to resort to bribery. As a privileged one, out of compassion for Nina, he would lend his aid. He might pretend he was the attending surgeon or physician, and that it was by his orders that the patient was denied visitors.
He drew the door, which was slightly ajar, wider. He made a third in the vestibule. And then he recognized the caller. It was Lord Kneedrock.