“No.”
Lauriston felt better.
“But I could see into it, and there was nothing extraordinary in it.”
“It was the other room,” murmured Lauriston.
“Well, we are at the corner of my street, and I will wish you good-night. We professional men have to keep early hours when we can.”
“Shall you call there again?”
“Possibly. But, if you will take an old man’s advice, you will not.”
“You will tell me why?”
“I will. I saw nothing of the marvellous sights you appear to have witnessed, but I saw something which you did not, or at least not in the same way. That little black-haired girl’s eyes are the eyes of a woman who is born to be a coquette—perhaps something more; and who can no more help looking up into the eyes of every man she meets with a look that draws out his soul and his senses and leaves him a mere automaton to be moved by her as she pleases than fire can help burning, or the spider help spinning his thread.”
“I will never believe it. You may have had thirty years’ more experience than I; but, by Jove, where a woman is concerned, one man’s guess is as good as another’s. And I am quite as firmly convinced that the child is an innocent and good little girl as you are that she is the contrary. I know it, I am sure of it; as I held her in my arms——”