“She follows Bruce Deville about everywhere. I never saw anything so atrociously barefaced. If he were her husband she could not claim more from him. They have just gone by together now.”
“What! this afternoon?” I asked.
“Not a quarter of an hour ago,” she declared. “She was holding his arm, and looking up at him with her great black eyes every moment. Bah! such a woman gives one a bad taste in one’s mouth.”
“I wonder that Mr. Deville is not rude to her,” I remarked. “He does not seem to be a man likely to be particularly amiable under the circumstances. I should not think he would be very easily annexed.”
She smiled faintly.
“From his general behavior one would not put him down as a willing squire of dames,” she said; “but that girl is like a dog fawning for a bone. She will not let him alone. She waits about for him. She hates to have him out of her sight.”
“Perhaps—perhaps it is a good thing. It might take her mind off other things,” I suggested, softly.
“That is what I too am hoping,” she admitted. “That is why I believe Bruce endures her. There is one thing only of which I am afraid.”
“That is——” I asked.
“That she may send for a detective on her own account. Anything rather than that! The girl alone I think we might deal with.”