“No!” she answered shortly, “an enemy. A cruel enemy—the cruelest enemy a woman could have!”
The subdued passion of her tone thrilled him. He felt himself bewildered—in touch with strange things. She leaned a little closer towards him, and that mysterious perfume, which was one of her many fascinations, dazed him with its sweetness.
“If you could send home word,” she whispered, “that he was ill, that anything had happened to him, that he was not likely to return—our fortunes would be made—yours and mine.”
“Stop!” he muttered. “You—phew! It’s hot here!”
He wiped the perspiration recklessly from his forehead with a red silk handkerchief.
“What made you come to me?” he asked. “I don’t even know the name of your mistress.”
“And you must not ask it,” she declared quietly. “It is better for you not to know. I came to you because you were a man, and I knew that I could trust you.”
Her flattery sank into his soul. No one else had ever called him a man. He felt himself capable of great things. To think that, but for the coming of this wonderful Mademoiselle Violet, he might even now have been furnishing a small shop on the outskirts of Islington, with collars and ties and gloves designed to attract the youth of that populous neighborhood!
“When do I start?” he asked with a coolness which surprised himself.
She drew a heavy packet from the recesses of the muff she carried.