"How d'you do, Mr. Baird? You'll pardon me if I ask you to leave me alone with my WIFE."
Stanley met the situation with perfect coolness. "How are you, General?" said he. "Certainly, I was just going." He extended his hand to Mildred, said in a correct tone of conventional friendliness, "Then you'll let me know when you're settled?" He bowed, moved toward the door, shook hands with the general, and passed out, giving from start to finish a model example of a man of the world extricating himself from an impossible situation and leaving it the better for his having been entangled. To a man of Siddall's incessant and clumsy self-consciousness such unaffected ease could not but be proof positive of Mildred's innocence—unless he had overheard. And his first words convinced her that he had not. Said he:
"So you sent for your old admirer?"
"I ran across him accidentally," replied Mildred.
"I know," said the little general. "My men picked you up at the pier and haven't lost sight of you since. It's fortunate that I've kept myself informed, or I might have misunderstood that chap's being here." A queer, cloudy look came into his eyes. "I must give him a warning for safety's sake." He waved his hand in dismissal of such an unimportant trifle as the accidental Baird. He went on, his wicked eyes bent coldly and dully upon her: "Do you know what kind of a house this is?"
"Stanley Baird urged me to leave," replied she. "But I shall stay until I find a better—and that's not easy."
"Yes, my men have reported to me on the difficulties you've had. It was certainly fortunate for you that I had them look after you. Otherwise I'd never have understood your landing in this sort of a house. You are ready to come with me?"
"Your secretary explained that if I left the hotel it was the end."
"He told you that by my orders."
"So he explained," said Mildred. She seated herself, overcome by a sudden lassitude that was accompanied not by fear, but by indifference. "Won't you sit down? I am willing to hear what you have to say."