"On purpose. You are a clever woman, Miss Dumps."
"I am, but not that name, please. Twine is my name, and Ferdy will marry me as Sarah Twine. I prefer to be called Zara, or Butterfly, myself. The other name is so plebeian; but then, I am a very common person."
"And a very clever one," said Clarice again, glancing at the gimcrack French clock on the draped mantelpiece; "but we are losing time, and I have to get back to my hotel. How did you recognise me?"
"Ah!" Zara clapped her hands. "Was not that smart of me? You will say yes. But you are wrong. It was chance--the chance upon which you did not reckon. It was ingenious of you to send Ferdy to Gattlinsands to get him out of the way, but it did not occur to you that Ferdy might write." She picked up an envelope from the table and threw it across to Clarice. "Here. It has just arrived."
Clarice threw the letter back. "There is no need. I recognise Ferdy's writing on the envelope. I don't wish to know how he writes to you."
"In a perfectly proper way, I assure you," said Zara, coolly; "I don't allow that child to be too familiar--it breeds contempt, you know. I have had too much of that sort of thing before I became famous, so I don't want another dose."
"So you knew that I was not Ferdy," said Clarice, slowly.
"Not at first; not until, by chance, I opened that envelope. I started, as you saw, and then came across to look at your arm. As the name--my name, Zara--was not tattooed there, I guessed at once that you were not Ferdy, and that you could be none other than Miss Baird, the double of my dear sweet boy."
"Spare me the adjectives," said Clarice, coldly.
"I'm sparing you a great deal, I think," said Zara, viciously; "by what right do you thrust yourself into my affairs?"