"I," I said, "am, I fear, a coward. Even when to-night I started out to keep my appointment with you I had fears. I was so afraid," I continued, "that I even went so far as to insure my safety."
"To insure your safety!" he repeated softly, like a man who repeats words of whose significance he is not assured.
"I admit it," I answered. "It was cowardly, and, I am sure, unnecessary. But I did it."
His face darkened with anger.
"You have brought an escort with you, perhaps?" he said. "You have the police outside?"
I shook my head.
"Nothing so clumsy," I answered. "There is just my taxicab, which won't go away unless it is I who says to go, and a little note I left with the hall-porter of the Milan, to be opened in case I was not back in an hour and a half. You see," I continued, apologetically, "my nerve has been a little shaken lately, and I did not know the neighborhood."
"You are discretion itself," Delora said. "Some day I will remember this as a joke against you. Have you been reading Gaboriau, my young friend, or his English disciples? This is your own city—London—the most law-abiding place on God's earth."
"I know it," I answered, "and yet a place is so much what the people who live in it may make it. I must confess that your five exits, two on to the river, would have given me a little shiver if I had not known for certain that I had made my visit to you safe."
Delora tried to smile. As a matter of fact, I could see that the man was shaking with fury.