"Then why," he demanded, "did you insist upon this visit from me, and why did the little manicurist, who is a perfect stranger to me, insist also that I should come to you?"
She smiled, and looked down at her hands for a moment.
"Now if I answer all your questions, Sir Julien," she said, "you will have no more curiosity left, and when your curiosity is gone, perhaps some measure of your interest may go, too. Can you not bring yourself to believe that I may have had personal reasons for desiring your acquaintance?"
"Madame," he answered, "no! I cannot bring myself to believe that."
Again she laughed.
"I think," she declared, "that it is your candor which makes you
Englishmen so attractive. Do you believe that I am a dangerous person,
Sir Julien?"
He looked at her coldly and dispassionately.
"I think," he decided, "that you might be very dangerous indeed to a susceptible person."
"But not to you?"
"Certainly not to me," he admitted. "As you have already told me, it is within your knowledge that I am paying the price for having trusted a woman."