“The man we were talking about—your ex-god—Langdon.”
“Langdon,” she repeated, and her tone told me that Sammy knew and had hinted to her more than I suspected him of knowing. And, with her arms still folded, she paced up and down the room. I watched her slender feet in pale blue slippers appear and disappear—first one, then the other—at the edge of her trailing skirt.
Presently she stopped in front of me. Her eyes were gazing past me.
“You are sure it was he?” she asked.
I could not answer immediately, so amazed was I at her expression. I had been regarding her as a being above and apart, an incarnation of youth and innocence; with a shock it now came to me that she was experienced, intelligent, that she understood the whole of life, the dark as fully as the light, and that she was capable to live it, too. It was not a girl that was questioning me there; it was a woman.
“Yes—Langdon,” I replied. “But I've no quarrel with him. My reverse is nothing but the fortune of war. I assure you, when I see him again, I'll be as friendly as ever—only a bit less of a trusting ass, I fancy. We're a lot of free lances down in the Street. We fight now on one side, now on the other. We change sides whenever it's expedient; and under the code it's not necessary to give warning. To-day, before I knew he was the assassin, I had made my plans to try to save myself at his expense, though I believed him to be the best friend I had down town. No doubt he's got some good reason for creeping up on me in the dark.”
“You are sure it was he?” she repeated.
“He, and nobody else,” replied I. “He decided to do me up—and I guess he'll succeed. He's not the man to lift his gun unless he's sure the bird will fall.”
“Do you really not care any more than you show?” she asked. “Or is your manner only bravado—to show off before me?”
“I don't care a damn, since I'm to lose you,” said I. “It'll be a godsend to have a hard row to hoe the next few months or years.”