“Give me the paper, please.”
She read the column while Rosita pattered back to her room and ate her dainty breakfast. Every move she had made on the day before was chronicled. On another page an editorial commented on the facts of her having visited a young man’s apartment, and finally taken refuge with the notorious Spanish woman.
She dressed herself hastily in her black garments, and locked and strapped her trunk. “I’ll go straight down and give myself up,” she thought. “It’s what I ought to have done yesterday. It’s eleven o’clock. I wish it were nine. Come.”
“Two gentlemen to see madame,” said the maid.
“What—who—what do they look like?”
“Like policemen, and yet not, madame.”
Patience gasped. Her knees gave way. Again she experienced that horrible feeling of disintegration. Her untasted breakfast stood on a table by the bed. She hastily drank a cup of black coffee, then walked steadily to the drawing-room.
“You have come for me?” she asked of the men.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Where am I to go?”