The latter made no gesture, uttered no word of greeting. The evil expression in his face was qualified by a thin, cold sneer. Thus they confronted each other—the one pale, apprehensive, yet with strong aversion and defiance in her eyes; the other self-possessed, thoroughly conscious of power, and returning hate for hate in fullest measure.
“Well?” broke from her at last, to the accompaniment of a half-checked stamp of the foot.
“Well?”
“What have you got to say to me?” she said curtly; adding, in a repressed volcano-storm of wrath and bitterness. “I have obeyed orders, you see.”
“You could not have done otherwise. Even you have the sense thoroughly to realise that.”
“But I didn’t know you were here,” she went on; “not yet, anyhow. When I saw you I got something of a shock, for my system is not what it was. You quite took me by surprise.”
“I believe you—for once. Finished actress as you are, even you could hardly have counterfeited the tragic effect produced by my unexpected appearance yesterday. The devil himself could hardly have scared you more.”
“Of the two it is the devil himself that I should have preferred to see.”
“Undoubtedly. But the malevolent powers commonly attributed to that functionary are nothing to those I shall bring to bear on you if you neglect to carry out my instructions implicitly. On you and yours, I should have said.”
Was it there that the secret of his power lay? An involuntary spasm passed through her frame as if she had received a stab.