* * * * * * *
"Let us talk," said T. B. He laid her tiny pistol on the table, and with his thumb raised the safety-catch.
"You are not afraid of a toy pistol?" she scoffed.
"I am afraid of anything that carries a nickel bullet," he confessed without shame. "I know by experience that your 'toy' throws a shot that penetrates an inch of pinewood and comes out on the other side. I cannot offer the same resistance as pinewood," he added modestly.
"I have been warned about you," she said, with a faint smile.
"So you were warned?" T. B. was mildly amused and just a trifle annoyed. It piqued him to know that, whilst, as he thought, he had been working in the shadow, he had been under a searchlight.
"You are—what do you call it in England?—smug," she said, "but what are you going to do with me?"
She had let fall her cloak and was again leaning back lazily in the big armchair. The question was put in the most matter-of-fact tones.
"That you shall see," said T. B. cheerfully. "I am mainly concerned now in preventing you from communicating with your friends."
"It will be rather difficult?" she challenged, with a smile. "I am not proscribed; my character does not admit——"