“He brought me. I didn’t want to come,” said Adele.
She was half hysterical in her fright. She tried hard to imitate the calm of her companion, biting her quivering lips to keep them still, and after a while she was calm enough to tell what had happened. Stella’s face clouded.
“Of course, he took my car,” she said, speaking to herself, “and he has caught the chauffeur, as he said he would. Oh, my God!”
“What will he do?” asked Adele in a whisper.
Stella’s fine eyes turned on the girl.
“What do you think he will do?” she asked significantly. “He’s a beast—the kind of beast you seldom meet except in books—and locked rooms. He’ll have no more mercy on you than Bhag would have on you.”
“If Michael knows, he will kill him.”
“Michael? Oh, Brixan, you mean?” said Stella with newly awakened interest. “Is he fond of you? Is that why he hangs around the lot? That never struck me before. But what does he care about Michael or any other man? He can run—his yacht is at Southampton, and he depends a lot upon his wealth to get him out of these kind of scrapes. And he knows that decent women shrink from appearance in a police court. Oh, he’s got all sorts of defences. He’s a worm, but a scaly worm!”
“What shall I do?”
Stella was walking up and down the narrow apartment, her hands clasped before her, her eyes sunk to the ground.