About eleven that night Armstrong, his nerves on edge from long, incessant pacing of the cage in which Atwater had him securely entrapped, was irritated by a knock at his door. "Come in!" he called sharply.
He heard the door, which was behind him, open and close with less noise than the hall boy ever made. Then nothing but the profound silence again.
"Well, what is it?" he demanded, turning in his chair—he was sitting before an open fire.
He started up, instantly recognized her, though her figure was swathed in an opera wrap, and the lace scarf over and about her head concealed her features without suggesting intent.
"I was at the opera," she began. "All at once—just before the last act—I felt I must see you—must see you to-night. I knew you'd not come to me. So, I had to come to you." And she advanced to the middle of the room. As he made no movement toward her, said nothing, she flung aside the scarf and opened her wrap with a single graceful gesture. She was in evening dress, and the upturned ermine of the collar of her wrap made a beautiful setting for those slender white shoulders, the firm round throat, the small, lightly poised head, crowned with masses of bright brown hair.
He took her hand. It was ice. "Come to the fire," said he.
"I'm cold—with fright," she explained. And then he noted how pale she was. "It wasn't easy to induce the hall boy to let me up unannounced. I told him you were expecting me."
She stretched one hand, one slender, round, bare arm toward the flames. She put one foot on the fender, and his glance, dropping from the allurement of the slim fingers, was caught by the narrow pale-gray slipper, its big buckle of brilliants, the web of pale-gray translucent silk over her instep——
"You've no business here," he said angrily. "You must go at once."
"Not until I am warm."