With such booty as this it again occurred to me to be on the safe side and to go back by the way I came. I was, in fact, looking round me to see if there was any other small valuable object I could lift before departing when I heard a door open in some distant part of the house—and voices.
They were women’s voices, or, rather, as I speedily inferred, girls’ voices. By listening intently I drew the conclusion that two girls had come out of a room on the third floor and were coming down the stairs.
It was the minute to make off, and I tried to do so. I might have effected my escape had I not been checked by the figure of a man looming up suddenly before me. He sprang out of nowhere—a tall, slender man, in a dark-blue suit, with trousers baggy at the knees, and wearing an old golfing-cap. I jumped back from him in terror, only to find that it was my own reflection in the pier-glass. But the few seconds’ delay lost me my chance to get away.
By the time I had tiptoed to the door the voices were on the same floor as myself. Two girls were advancing along the hall, evidently making their way to this chamber. My retreat being cut off, I looked wildly about for a place in which to hide myself. In the instants at my disposal I could discover nothing more remote than the bay window, screened by its loose rose-colored hangings. By the time the young ladies were on the threshold I was established there, with the silk sections pulled together and held tightly in my hand.
The first words I heard were: “But it will seem so like a habit. Men will be afraid of you.”
This voice was light, silvery, and staccato. That which replied had a deep mezzo quality, without being quite contralto.
“They won’t be nearly so much afraid of me,” it said, fretfully, “as I am of them. I wish—I wish they’d let me alone!”
“Oh, well, they won’t do that—not yet awhile; unless, as I say, they see you’re hopeless. Really, dear, when a girl breaks a third engagement—”
“They must see that she wouldn’t do it if she didn’t have to. Here—this is the hook that always bothers me.”
There were tears in the mezzo voice now, with a hint of exasperation that might have been due to the lover or the hook, I couldn’t be sure which.