Her voice was what you would have expected an artistic Providence to give her. It complemented the lips. If you closed your eyes and heard the voice you saw her eyes and felt the heavenly strawberries on your own lips!
Jemingham had not taken his cold eyes off her. He asked as if she were anybody—a woman of forty, for example, “Will you listen to me carefully?”
“Oh yes!”
“I provide transportation, first-class, to London. I pay you thirty-five dollars a week for your services and allow ten dollars a day for hotel expenses, and so on. At the end of the case your contingent fee will depend upon your success. We don't want to skimp—but we are not throwing away money. It may be one hundred or five hundred dollars. But forget all about it.”
“I have—in advance,” said the marvel, calmly.
Jemingham looked at her steadily. She looked back unflinchingly and yet not at all defiantly as a lesser person would.
“If you accept my offer you will go when in London to Thornton's Hotel—an old-fashioned but very select hotel—where you will find a nice room reserved for you; I will cable for it. It will cost you a guinea a day—for the room and table board. You will thus have five dollars a day for cabs and incidentals. In that hotel lives Mrs. Margaret Deering, an elderly American widow, who looks healthy enough. We fear she is not so strong as she looks, and don't want her to be alone. But she will not take hints. I wish you to make friends with her, so that if she should become ill enough to need attention you may see that she gets proper care and induce her to cable to her only daughter.” He stopped and looked at Miss Keogh inquiringly, as if to convince himself that Miss Keogh had understood.
“What,” said Miss Keogh, calmly, “is the rest of it?” Her eyes were very dark. They always seemed to deepen in color when she frowned. She always frowned when she concentrated—all women do, notwithstanding their dread of wrinkles.
Jerningham stared at her. Then he said, “The lady is not insane.”
“Nervous?”