She gave a nervous little laugh.
“Maurice has always spoken of you with gratitude,” she said.
“To deaf ears, eh? Yes, he has reason to be grateful, though perhaps I ought not to say it. I have put him into several very good things on the coast, and it is in my power to get him into this new scheme. It is a big thing; he would be a rich man in no time.”
He rose from his seat and deliberately crossed the room to the sofa where she had sat down, where he reclined, with one arm stretched out along the back of it towards her. In his other hand he held his riding-whip, with which he began to stroke the skirt of her dress, which reached along the floor almost to his feet.
“Would you like him to be in it?” he asked, with a meaning glance beneath his lashes. “It is a pity to throw away a good chance; his position is not so very secure, you know.”
She gave a strange little hunted glance round the room. She was wedged into a corner, and could not rise without incurring the risk of his saying something she did not wish to hear. Then she leant forward and deliberately withdrew her dress from the touch of his whip, which was in its way a subtle caress.
“Is he throwing away the chance?” she asked.
“No, but you are.”
Then she rose from her seat, and, standing in the middle of the room, faced him with a sudden gleam in her eyes.
“I do not see what it has to do with me,” she said; “I do not know anything about Maurice's business arrangements, and very little about his business friends.”