"You've hit the mark, Andrew," she said, in a low voice, in which there was a curious hissing quality—"you've hit the mark, as you always do. What you've said is perfectly true. I know it and feel it."
Her eyes blazed, and she put one white and shapely hand up to the ivory column of her throat, wrestling with the agony of hysteria and hate, which once more threatened to master her. With a great effort of will, she calmed herself, and went on speaking.
"But all this, Andrew, depends upon one little word, 'if.'"
Lord Bellina looked quickly at Levison, with a glance which seemed to say that they had already arrived at precisely the same conclusion.
"That's it," he said; "there is always that little word, 'if.'"
There was a dead silence in the little room, and three faces, pale and full of sinister purpose, sought each other in a horrid trio of hate.
The girl's face was as it had been from the first, unredeemed evil. The countenance of the young peer had changed from its usual vacuous and dissipated weakness into something which, bad as it was, had still a quality of strength. He had sat cowering in the theatre while the terrible denunciation of the evangelist had laid bare the secrets of his life. And although he did not outwardly show how hard he had been hit, his resentment was no less furious though less vulgarly expressed, than that of Mimi.
The Israelite gave no indication of his inward feelings. In truth, they were of a quite different nature from those of the other two. He lived for two purposes. One was to make money, the other was to enjoy himself; he saw now that his money-making was menaced, and that his enjoyment would be spoiled—unless—
Mimi Addington became suddenly quite calm and business-like. She realized that she was in perfect accord with the other two.
"Now let's get to work," she said. "This Joseph must be got rid of at once. It can be done, I suppose, if we pay enough."