"Let there be no misunderstanding between us. I know precisely what you have taken; and it will be in my hands before you ever leave this room!"
She had a sense of destiny shaping itself before her, while she stood a helpless and disinterested spectator of the vague but implacable transformation which, in the end, must in one way or the other so vitally concern her.
"I have nothing," she answered simply.
He waved her protest aside.
"Madam, have you thought, or do you now know, what the cost of this will be to you?"
He was towering over her now. She was wondering whether or not there was a ghost of a chance for her to snatch at his pistol.
"I can pay only what I owe," she maintained evasively.
He looked at her, and then at the locked door. His face took on a sudden and crafty change. The rage and anger ebbed out of him. He placed the lamp on the dressing-table of polished rosewood. Then his lean, white fingers meditatively adjusted his tie, and even more meditatively stroked at the narrow black imperial, before he spoke again.
"What greater crown may one hope for, in any activity of life, than a beautiful woman?" he asked quietly.
There was a moment of unbroken silence.