“I rely upon you all,” Mr. Fentolin continued softly. “Henderson, you, perhaps, have the most difficult task, for you have the servants to control. Nevertheless, I rely upon you, also. If one word of this visitor’s presence here leaks out even so far as the village, out they go, every one of them. I will not have a servant in the place who does not respect my wishes. You can give any reason you like for my orders. It is a whim. I have whims, and I choose to pay for them. You are all better paid than any man breathing could pay you. In return I ask only for your implicit obedience.”
He stretched out his hand and took a cigarette from a curiously carved ivory box which stood by his side. He tapped it gently upon the table and looked up.
“I think, sir,” Henderson said respectfully, “that I can answer for the servants. Being mostly foreigners, they see little or nothing of the village people.”
No one else made any remark. It was strange to see how dominated they all were by that queer little fragment of humanity, whose head scarcely reached a foot above the table before which he sat. They departed silently, almost abjectly, dismissed with a single wave of the hand. Mr. Fentolin beckoned his secretary to remain. She came a little nearer.
“Sit down, Lucy,” he ordered.
She seated herself a few feet away from him. Mr. Fentolin watched her for several moments. He himself had his back to the light. The woman, on the other hand, was facing it. The windows were high, and the curtains were drawn back to their fullest extent. A cold stream of northern light fell upon her face. Mr. Fentolin gazed at her and nodded his head slightly.
“My dear Lucy,” he declared, “you are wonderful—a perfect cameo, a gem. To look at you now, with your delightful white hair and your flawless skin, one would never believe that you had ever spoken a single angry word, that you had ever felt the blood flow through your veins, or that your eyes had ever looked upon the gentle things of life.”
She looked at him, still without speech. The immobility of her face was indeed a marvellous thing. Mr. Fentolin’s expression darkened.
“Sometimes,” he murmured softly, “I think that if I had strong fingers—really strong fingers, you know, Lucy—I should want to take you by the throat and hold you tighter and tighter, until your breath came fast, and your eyes came out from their shadows.”
She turned over a few pages of her notebook. To all appearance she had not heard a word.