She laid aside her hat and coat, and as she turned toward him, he observed with pleasure that she was really exceedingly pretty. "Rose will be here right away," she observed; then, listening for a moment, she added, "There she is now," and Mills, listening in his turn, could hear a light footfall ascending the stair. But in another instant his companion's face turned white. "My God!" she cried, "it's my husband. I thought he was out of town. What on earth shall I do? He mustn't find you here."
Mills gave her one searching glance, muttered grimly to himself, "Well, I'll be damned," and making no effort to escape, sat motionless in his chair, his eyes fixed upon the door, which opened the next moment to admit a small, sinister looking man, who gazed at the couple before him in a manner forbidding and malevolent. Nor were his first words reassuring. "What the hell is this?" he cried, and advancing toward Mills, he demanded truculently, "What the devil are you doing here?"
The girl sprang forward. "Don't hurt him!" she cried. "It's my fault. I oughtn't to have listened to him. But he wanted to come. He said he'd pay me well--"
Her words acted as an infuriant upon this slender but dangerous looking man. "I'll teach you swells--" he hissed, and like a flash he whipped a pistol from his pocket and levelled it at the head of the unfortunate Mills.
For an instant the victim gazed stolidly at the menacing circle of steel; then, with an air of complete detachment from his surroundings, he made an equivocal and wholly unlooked-for rejoinder. "Got a cigarette?" he asked.
The outraged husband glared. From past experience on many such occasions he was quite prepared for men who grovelled and begged for mercy, and once in a great while he had learned to look for a man who showed fight, but a retort like this was distinctly a novelty. And since the question scarcely admitted of a direct reply, he responded with a snarl, "Now don't get gay, young feller, don't get gay."
Mills turned to the girl. "I call that tough," he observed conversationally. "Here I want to register courage, and the only real way to do it is to light a cigarette. I love to see 'em do it on the stage, and now when I have a chance myself, all I can do is just say I'm not scared. But it's not the same thing; it ruins the effect."
The girl eyed him keenly, her face noncommittal, expressionless. The man continued to glare. Mills did not look like a lunatic, and the girl, as a rule, managed to "pick them" to perfection. Yet this time it appeared as though she had made a mistake, and while he hesitated, uncertain as to his next move, Mills obligingly relieved his embarrassment by continuing, "What you want, of course, is to get money out of me or else to damage my reputation. But unfortunately for you, I have neither reputation nor money. As far as reputation goes, I'm a small town guy, unknown in New York, and as for money, I've been playing the wheat market, and if you're looking for my coin, why, as the funny man says, 'I'll help you look.' I'm sorry to be such a disappointment--" he turned once more to the girl--"but this is the time you got the wrong pig by the ear."
The pseudo husband stared fixedly at Mills as if trying to make up his mind as to the truth of his story; then evidenced his belief by abruptly returning his pistol to his pocket, and to relieve his feelings began to vent his indignation upon the girl. "By Gad, you're clever," he exclaimed, and since he did not possess a large vocabulary and depended principally upon repetition for his effects, he added, after a momentary pause, "You're clever, by Gad."
The girl's brow darkened. Evidently she did not take kindly to criticism, and casting about for some means of defence, she jerked her head in Tubby's direction. "Well," she countered, "look at him."