"You are simply wasting your strength, you know," Jesse went on, putting forth all of the power of his arms and holding her so close to him that for a moment she could not move. "I have no taste for this sort of schoolboy and schoolgirl tugging and hauling. But you force me to it. You haven't a chance on earth of getting out of here, even if I release you—which I shall, as soon as I have taken a little harmless toll of your lips. Now, are you going to be sensible and quit this idiotic business?"
Louise did not answer him. She had said no word, made no plea, since he had seized upon her. She knew that words would be useless, and she could not have framed a beseeching phrase to address to him had she tried. She was taking her chance, doing all she could to make the chance better. But she could not and would not implore him to release her. She thought of screaming; but, remembering how the man who had conducted her upstairs had let her into the room and then obliterated himself, she reasoned it out, even in the intensity of the struggle, that this man no doubt was a flunky accomplice who would pay no attention to her screaming. Nevertheless she did decide that, as a last resort, she would scream, taking the chance that whomsoever happened to be on the floor beneath or the one above might come to her assistance.
She had relaxed a little, for rest, as he spoke to her, and, catching her off her guard, Jesse suddenly put forth all of his power and swung her, slipping and almost falling as he did so, partly through the portieres from which he had emerged when she came in.
When the portieres thus were thrust apart, Louise saw, standing in the middle of the room which they screened off, a surprised-looking, somewhat scowling little Japanese. Jesse caught sight of Mutsu at the same instant that Louise did.
"What the devil are you doing here?" Jesse demanded of the valet. "Get out and stay out till this evening, do you hear?"
Mutsu first lowered his head, then shook it with a most decided negative. His lips were pulled back from his teeth; mutiny shone all over him.
"What you do?" he demanded of Jesse, falling into a pidgin vernacular which he rarely used except when excited. "She no like to be crushed in embrace? She is of an innocence. She is of an honorable. I saw that at Savoy Hotel when first I see her. Why you no let go?"
"Get out of here, I say, you damned chattering monkey!" Jesse raged at him, relaxing his hold upon Louise, and leaping at the little Japanese.
Mutsu, retreating not an inch, met the charge of his employer with lowered head, and when Jesse thrust out a hand to grab him the Japanese, revealing a perfect adeptness at jiu-jitsu which Jesse never had known he possessed, seized the thrust-out hand between both of his own sinewy ones; and in an instant Jesse's face was drawn with pain. Then the Japanese made a sudden dart behind Jesse, pulling back the hand to which he still clung and the arm to which it was attached in such a way that the big, bulky man could not move without breaking the arm; he felt the tendons stretching to the breaking point as it was.
"Now you go, Miss innocent honorable lady," said Mutsu, without visible excitement, to Louise. "Go through next back room and out door there. I see you at Savoy tonight after I get fired-dismissed from valet position here."