“Madame,” I stammered, my jarred brain fastening upon the sentence she had interrupted, “Charles sent me to—to say to you——”
“Charles who?” she asked. And as tense as was her face, a gleam of merriment shot through her eyes. “Charles who?” she repeated.
Charles was not one of the points upon which the Irish maid had given me information.
The lady with the pistol considered for a moment. “You are not very clever, are you?” she said.
“If you will pardon me,” I said, “I think I had better be going. I seem to have mistaken the house.”
“You at least seem to have mistaken the proper manner in which to enter it,” she returned.
“Why, as to the mode of entrance,” I said, “I might plead that the mistake appears to have been less in that than in the person who employed it.”
I could not resist the retort. A dull red crept slowly up her neck and face; a pallid, olive-tinted face, beautiful in itself, beautiful for its oval contour and broad brow, and frame of black hair; beautiful in itself, and yet dominated and outdone by the lustrous, restless beauty of the dark eyes wherewith she held me more surely captive than by virtue of the pistol.
“You will come in,” she said, “and sit there.” She indicated a seat beside a central table. “But first you will kindly let me have whatever weapons you may possess.” She took my revolver, examined it, and put her own in the breast of her gown. “Now you may put your hands down,” she said, “your arms must ache by now. Sit down.”
I sat. She stood and looked at me for a moment.