“Look at me,” she said, throwing back her arms.
“Look at me,” she said, throwing back her arms in such a way as to bring forward her slender body, in the tight black sheath of the dress which was of the fashion which, I think, women call “Princess.” It fitted her as smoothly as the gloves that covered her arms to the elbows.
“Do you think there is much chance for concealment in this dress?” she asked. “I haven’t a pocket, you see. No self-respecting woman could have, in a gown like this. I don’t know in the least what sort of ‘gift’ my old friend is supposed to have brought me. Is it large or small? I’ll take off my gloves and let you see my rings, if you like, Monsieur le Commisaire, for I’ve been taught, as a servant of the public, to be civil to my fellow servants, even if they should be unreasonable. No? You don’t want to see my rings? Let me oblige you by taking off my hat, then. I might have put the thing—whatever it is— in my hair.”
As she spoke, she drew out her hatpins, still laughing in a half scornful, half good-natured way. She was bewitching as she stood smiling, with her black hat and veil in her hand, the ruffled waves of her dark red hair shadowing her forehead.
Meanwhile, fired by her example, I turned out the contents of my pockets: a letter or two; a flat gold cigarette case; a match box; my watch, and a handkerchief: also in an outer pocket of my coat, a small bit of crumpled paper of which I had no recollection: but as one of the gendarmes politely picked it up from the floor, where it had fallen, and handed it to me without examining it, mechanically I slipped it back into the pocket, and thought no more of it at the time. There were too many other things to think of, and I was wondering what on earth Maxine could have done with the letter-case. She had had no more than two seconds in which to dispose of it, hardly enough, it seemed to me, to pass it from one hand to another, yet apparently it was well hidden.
“Now, are you satisfied?” she asked, “Now that we have both shown you we have nothing to conceal; or would you like to take me to the police station, and have some dreadful female search me more thoroughly still? I’ll go with you, if you wish. I won’t even he indiscreet enough to ask questions, since you seem inclined to do what we’ve no need to do—keep your own secrets. All I stipulate is, that if you care to take such measures you’ll take them at once, for as you may possibly be aware, this is the first night of my new play, and I should be sorry to be late.”
The Commissary of Police looked fixedly at Maxine for a moment, as if he would read her soul.
“No, Mademoiselle,” he said, “I am convinced that neither you nor Monsieur are concealing anything about your persons. I will not trouble you further until we have searched the room.”
Maxine could not blanch, for already she was as white as she will be when she lies in her coffin. But though her expression did not change, I saw that the pupils of her eyes dilated. Actress that she is, she could control her muscles; but she could not control the beating of the blood in her brain. I felt that she was conscious of this betrayal, under the gaze of the policeman, and she laughed to distract his attention. My heart ached for her. I thought of a meadow-lark manoeuvering to hide the place where her nest lies. Poor, beautiful Maxine! In spite of her pride, her high courage, the veneer of hardness which her experience of the world had given, she was infinitely pathetic in my eyes; and though I had never loved her, though I did love another woman, I would have given my life gladly at this minute if I could have saved her from the catastrophe she dreaded.