"You saw it was a plot, getting Brian to go to Paris with us," he went on. "I saw that you saw it. But I wasn't sure and I'm not sure now, if you realized its design, as the villain of the piece would remark."
"You ought to know what he'd remark."
"I do, dear villainess! I was going to say, 'Sister Villainess,' but I wouldn't have you for a sister at any price. I've cast you for a different part. You may have imagined that Dare and I were just grabbing your brother to spite you, and show what we could do with him."
"I did imagine that!"
"Wrong! Guess again. Or no—you needn't. We may be interrupted any minute. To save time I'll explain my bag of tricks. Dare wasn't in on that hand of mine."
"Indeed?"
"You don't believe me? That shows you're no judge of character. Dare adores her Jule, and what he wants her to do she does; but I told you she was no actress. She can't act much better off the stage than on. I wouldn't trust her to create the part of the White Cat, let alone that of Wily Vivien. She gets along all right if she can just keep still and sulk and act the Stormy Petrel. I should have pulled her through on those lines if she'd been obliged to play Jim Beckett's broken-hearted fiancée. But to do the siren with your brother—no, she wouldn't be equal to that, even to please me: couldn't get it across the footlights. I had to win her to Brian as well as win Brian to me. I hope you don't mind my calling him by his Christian name? He says I may."
"Why did you want to win Miss O'Farrell to my brother?"
"You don't know? You'll have to go down a place lower in this class! She couldn't make Brian really like her, unless she liked him. At first—though I knew better—she stuck it out that Brian was only a kind of decoy duck for you with the Becketts——"
"Oh!"