"Miss Shaw does not look bored." Madame Cimmino flashed a look of unconcealed hostility at the girl, her usually dull eyes snapping fire. "Marcia has sent me for you. She is in her private sitting-room."
"At your service, Madame." He shrugged, glanced at Betty from beneath lowered lids and bounded lightly up the stair. Midway he passed the woman and she caught his arm, murmuring something in a staccato patter of Italian. He shook himself free and laughing vanished around the gallery overhead.
"Will you be satisfied always to be commanded when you might command?" His words still rang in Betty's ears and his dark face, sinister and insurgent rose before her mental vision. Had he not spoken as much to himself as to her? He, too, appeared to be at Mrs. Atterbury's command and the girl recalled his half-cringing defiance in that secret quarrel of the previous evening. Was he contemplating revolt?
All at once she was aware that Madame Cimmino stood staring with insolent hauteur into her face.
"I must find Welch; I have a message for him." She stammered and was turning away when the other woman detained her with a gesture.
"Surely a further delay will make but little difference, Miss Shaw." Her tones were silky. "There is something I wish to say to you and you would do well to listen to me. You are clever even for an American young girl, but you rely too much upon your ability to take care of yourself. For your own good I speak; do not try to play with Jack Wolvert."
"I don't understand you, Madame," Betty said coldly. "What have I to do with any guest of Mrs. Atterbury?"
"What indeed?" The woman came close and thrust her sallow pointed chin forward. "Do you think I have no eyes, that I have not seen your sly crude efforts to engage his attention? Mille tonneres! You are but a conceited, over confident child! Your very gaucherie may amuse him for the moment but you could not hold him a day. Do I not know him? Have I not studied his every mood these many years? Could you think in the insolence of your youth to take him from me?"
"You are mistaken, Madame." The girl spoke in quiet control, but she met the snakelike glitter in the other's eyes with an answering gleam. "I have no interest whatever in Mr. Wolvert and his inclinations and prejudices are alike of no moment to me. In any case I am accountable to my employer alone for my conduct and I have received no complaint from Mrs. Atterbury. Let me pass, please."
"Then I warn you!" Madame Cimmino turned livid. "You are treading on dangerous ground, more dangerous than you know. Keep your silly schoolgirl wiles for others, but leave Jack Wolvert to me or I will make you wish that the earth had opened and engulfed you before you crossed my path!"