Borrowdean was thinking quickly. He wanted to gain time.
"I do not even know which document you have—purloined," he said.
"It is from Leeds," she answered, "and it is signed Polden. 'Parkins found, has made statement, appears to-night.' Can you explain what this means, Sir Leslie Borrowdean?"
Her voice was scarcely raised above a whisper, but there was a dangerous glitter in her eyes. There were few traces left of the woman whom once before he had found so easy a tool.
"I cannot tell you," he answered. "It is not an affair for you to concern yourself with at all."
"Not an affair for me to concern myself about!" she repeated, leaning a little over towards him. "Isn't it my husband against whom you are scheming? Don't I know what low tricks you are capable of? Isn't this another proof of it? Not an affair for me to concern myself about, indeed! Didn't you worm the whole miserable story out of me?"
"My dear Mrs. Mannering!"
She checked a torrent of words. Her bosom was heaving underneath her lace blouse. She was pale almost to the lips. The sudden and complete disuse of all manner of cosmetics had to a certain extent blanched her face. There was room there now for the writing of tragedy. Borrowdean, still outwardly suave, was inwardly cursing the unlucky chance which had blown the telegram her way.
"Might I suggest," he said, in a low tone, "that we postpone our conversation till after breakfast time? The waiters seem to be favouring us with a great deal of attention, and several of them understand English."
She did not even turn her head. Thinner a good deal since her marriage, she seemed to him to have grown taller, to have gained in dignity and presence, as she stood there before him, her angry eyes fixed upon his face. She was no longer a person to be ignored.