"Since you have made up your mind, Jack," said Merrihew doggedly, "why, there's nothing for me to do but fall in. But it's kings against two-spots."
"Mental reservation?" said the temptress. "Mr. Hillard has none."
"I am not quite certain I have none," replied Hillard, renewing his interest in the rose.
A moment later, when he looked up, her glance plunged into his, but found nothing. Hillard could fence with the eyes as well as with the foils.
"Well," she said, finding that Hillard's mental reservations were not to be voiced, "here are three who will not desert me."
"That's all very well," rejoined O'Mally; "but it is different with those two. Mr. Hillard's a millionaire, or near it, and he could buy his way through all the jails in Italy. Smith here, Worth and Miss Killigrew and myself, we have nothing. More than that, we're jotted down in the police books, even to the mole on the side of my nose. There's no way out for us. We are accomplices."
"You will leave in the morning, then?" asked La Signorina contemptuously.
"I hope to."
"Want of courage?"
"No. Against physical danger I am willing to offer myself at any time to your Highness," with a touch of bitter irony. "But to walk straight into jail, with my eyes open, that's a horse of a different color."