"Well, d'you know, my dear," Levison said, taking out a cigar and lighting it with great deliberation—"well, d'you know that it's the little matter that we discussed that I've come up about this afternoon."
"How much longer is that Joseph to be allowed to cumber London?" she said, with a hissing intake of the breath.
"Well, that all depends," Levison answered, amused with the skill with which he could play upon her passion. The Jew loved power and the exercise of it. He gratified himself now by playing on her as if she were an instrument and noticing how swiftly she responded to his touch.
"Oh, hang it all, Andrew," Lord Ballina said, "don't tease Mimi. If you've got any news about this business let's have it."
Levison thought he had gone far enough, and took the Daily Wire which he had brought with him from his pocket.
"Read that," he said, handing it to the young peer.
Ballina read out the paragraph in a monotonous sing-song, with now and then such observations as suggested themselves to his limited and vicious intelligence.
"Well," he said, "for the matter of that, Andrew, the papers are full of the fellow every day, and his goings on. I don't see what news there is in that, it's only just another of his games. Was that all you came up to tell us?"
Levison saw the look of scorn that Mimi Addington flashed at the young man. Her own intelligence was infinitely keener; and though Levison had not gone into any details about the arrangements he had made, she saw the significance of the fact in the newspaper immediately.
"What a duffer you are, Bally," she said contemptuously. "Why, it's perfectly clear of course. What better place could you have for knocking a Johnny on the head than an East End slum? That's what Andrew means, and that's what he's come to tell us, isn't it, Andrew?"