“That’s better,” he said, as I declined cheese, and lighted a cigarette. “‘When in difficulties have a square meal before you tackle ’em; that’s my maxim,—original, and worth its weight in gold. I give it you for nothing. Now about this affair; it’s more like a melodrama than a tragedy. You know, or suspect, that Anne Pendennis is mixed up in it?”
“I neither know nor suspect any such thing,” I said deliberately. I had recovered my self-possession, and the lie, I knew, sounded like truth, or would have done so to any one but Jim Cayley.
“Then your manner just now was inexplicable,” he retorted quietly. “Now, just hear me out, Maurice; it’s no use trying to bluff me. You think I am prejudiced against this girl. Well, I’m not. I’ve always acknowledged that she’s handsome and fascinating to a degree, though, as I told you once before, she’s a coquette to her finger-tips. That’s one of her characteristics, that she can’t be held responsible for, any more than she can help the color of her hair, which is natural and not touched up, like Amy Vereker’s, for instance! Besides, Mary loves her; and that’s a sufficient proof, to me, that she is ‘O. K.’ in one way. You love her, too; but men are proverbially fools where a handsome woman is concerned.”
“What are you driving at, Jim?” I asked. At any other time I would have resented his homily, as I had done before, but now I wanted to find out how much he knew.
“A timely warning, my boy. I suspect, and you know, or I’m very much mistaken, that Anne Pendennis had some connection with this man who is murdered. She pretended last night that she had never met him before; but she had,—there was a secret understanding between them. I saw that, and so did you; and I saw, too, that her treatment of you was a mere ruse, though Heaven knows why she employed it! I can’t attempt to fathom her motive. I believe she loves you, as you love her; but that she’s not a free agent. She’s not like an ordinary English girl whose antecedents are known to every one about her. She, and her father, too, are involved in some mystery, some international political intrigues, I’m pretty sure, as this unfortunate Cassavetti was. I don’t say that she was responsible for the murder. I don’t believe she was, or that she had any personal hand in it—”
I had listened as if spellbound, but now I breathed more freely. Whatever his suspicions were, they did not include that she was actually present when Cassavetti was done to death.
“But she was most certainly cognizant of it, and her departure this morning was nothing more or less than flight,” he continued. “And—I tell you this for her sake, as well as for your own, Maurice—your manner just now gave the whole game away to any one who has any knowledge or suspicion of the facts. Man alive, you profess to love Anne Pendennis; you do love her; I’ll concede that much. Well, do you want to see her hanged, or condemned to penal servitude for life?”