He was smiling with curious complacency.
“It was your job to play the spider to the White Moll if she ever showed up again here in your parlor,” he said. “Maybe somebody tipped her off to keep away, maybe she was too wily; but, anyway, since you have not sent out any word, it is evident that our little plans along that line didn't work, since she has failed to come back to pay a call of gratitude to you. I don't suppose there's anything to add to that, eh, Bertha? No report to make?”
“No,” said Rhoda Gray shortly. “I haven't any report to make.”
“Well, no matter!” said Danglar. He laughed out shortly. “There are other ways! She's had her fling at our expense; it's her turn to pay now.” He laughed again—and in the laugh now there was something both brutal in its menace, and sinister in its suggestion of gloating triumph.
“What do you mean?” demanded Rhoda Gray quickly. “What are you going to do?”
“Get her!” said Danglar. The man's passion flamed up suddenly; he spoke through his closed teeth. “Get her! I made her a little promise. I'm going to keep it! Understand?”
“You've been saying that for quite a long time,” retorted Rhoda Gray coolly. “But the 'getting' has been all the other way so far. How are you going to get her?”
Danglar's little black eyes narrowed, and he thrust his head forward and out from his shoulders savagely. In the flickering candle light, with contorted face and snarling lips, he looked again the beast to which she had once likened him.
“Never mind how I'm going to get her!” he flung out, with an oath. “I told you I'd been busy. That's enough! You'll see—”
Rhoda Gray, in the semi-darkness, shrugged her shoulders. Was the man, prompted by rage and fury, simply making wild threats, or had he at last some definite and perhaps infallible plan that he purposed putting into operation? She did not know; and, much as it meant to her, she did not dare take the risk of arousing suspicion by pressing the question. Failing, then, to obtain any intimation of what he meant to do, the next thing most to be desired was to get rid of him.