With the utmost nonchalance, he had ordered a pillow, and, his ambrosial locks buried in its soft depths and his feet raised high above his head, he lounged a modern Apollo, scrutinizing with supercilious indifference the lady's work. If the cigar-ashes at his side were a criterion, he had been lying there for hours; and if the nervous movements of Mademoiselle were significant, he had been lying there an hour too long. For some minutes the silence was broken only by the jingle of the gaudy ornaments, and then the man exclaimed, "But, ma chère Adrienne, I am short—deuced short. Delay is ruin. How am I to live?"
"Work," said the lady, curtly.
"There you are again, with your cursed woman's wisdom! What are you here for? What am I here for?"
Mademoiselle answered, with a shrug, "Judging from your position, I would say, to enjoy your ease; from your language, to annoy me."
He raised himself to a sitting posture. "Adrienne Milan, do you take me for an idiot?"
"Edgar Fay, you are insulting."
"Prima donnas of the Alcasar are not usually so sensitive," broke out the visitor, with a laugh.
The woman sprang to her feet, and in the haste overturned the table with its glittering baubles.
"Go! go!" she fiercely exclaimed. "The compact between you and me is sacred. Another word, and I reveal all."
White as any ghost, he started up, and, without uttering a sound, slunk away.