Attracted by the solitary aspect of the quarter, he roamed toward the place where the lions and tigers lay, strode to and fro with stealthy step, or sat with magisterial gravity.
Paul Desfrayne had walked literally into the lion’s den.
A woman, young, strikingly handsome, dressed to perfection, was standing in front of the center compartment.
Madam Lucia Guiscardini!
Had any one of the brutes strolled out of its den, and held out a paw of greeting, the young man’s face could scarcely have worn an expression of greater dismay.
Had it been possible, he would have retreated. But the first sound of his firm, light step, made the superb Italian turn.
A heavy frown darkened her perfectly beautiful countenance, and she steadfastly gazed upon Captain Desfrayne with much the same look as the dangerous animals at her elbow had.
Paul Desfrayne raised his hat mechanically.
Madam Guiscardini took her small hands from off the railing, where they had been placed with an odd sort of grasp, and swept a curtsy almost ironical in its suavity.
The young man was obliged to advance, while Madam Guiscardini would not move an inch from the spot where she stood, continuing to gaze at him with that disagreeable, mesmeric expression which so painfully resembled the look of the wild beasts that made so suggestive a background.