“Isn’t there anything I can do for you?” he wheedled, meltingly, yet militantly.
It would have been laughable, under other circumstances, Frances tried to make herself believe—this solicitous tenderness of an unmannerly English butler, placidly extending to her the gallantries of the servants’ quarters. Now, she saw only the perils of the situation.
“You can leave this room,” she said, steadily, in answer to his question. She saw the look of stolid revolt that swept over his face, and she could have wrung her hands, in the extremity of her fear.
“Won’t you want anything fetched, later?” he still persecuted her.
“Yes, yes,” she cried, desperately; “but not now!”
“When?” he demanded, wagging his head, sagely.
“The later the better!” she answered, slowly, with a final and desperate craftiness, pointing to the door.
A sudden flame of audacious heat crept into the bloated face before her. He would still have tarried an admiring moment or two, but she returned his gaze, unfalteringly, for thirty resolute seconds. He wavered, mumbled something in his throat, flung one final melting leer at her, and then turned and crept from the room, nursing his two bottles in the crook of his arm as he went.
“Oh, thank God, thank God!” she cried, with a throaty little sob.
Then a second shudder, as momentarily benumbing as a chill, swept over her from head to foot. A sudden passion to get out where she could breathe and move took its place—at whatever ultimate loss—only to get away from that house of engulfing horrors.