She still looked at him in silence, from under lowered brows. Her fingers were locking and unlocking nervously.
"And to what do I owe this visit?" he demanded mockingly. He was quite close to her by this time.
She took a step backward. She could even smell brandy on his breath.
"Your English is admirable!" she answered, as mockingly.
"As your energy!" he retorted, taking a step nearer the still open door. Then he looked about the room, slowly and comprehensively. On his face, in the strong sidelight, she could see mirrored each fresh discovery, as step by step he covered the course of the completed invasion. She followed his gaze, which now rested on the rifled safe.
A little oath, in Russian, suddenly escaped his lips.
Then he turned and strode into the anteroom, and she could hear him making fast and locking the outer hall door. Then he withdrew the key, and came back to her.
"I must still regard you, of course, as my guest," he said slowly, with his easy menace.
"You Europeans always give us lessons in the older virtues!" she retorted, as mockingly as before, in her soft contralto.
He looked at her, for a moment, in puzzled wonder. Then he held the lamp closer to her face. He nursed no illusions about women. Frances Durkin knew that for years now he had made them his tools and his accomplices, never his dictators and masters. But as he looked into the pale face, with the shadowy, almost luminous violet eyes, and the soft droop of the full red lips, and the still girlish tenderness of line about the brow and chin, and then at the betraying fulness of throat and bosom, the mockery died out of his smile.