“You know,” I said to her, “I won’t have you play tricks with Callan—not while you’re using my name. It’s very much at your service as far as I’m concerned—but, confound it, if you’re going to injure him I shall have to show you up—to tell him.”
“You couldn’t, you know,” she said, perfectly calmly, “you’ve let yourself in for it. He wouldn’t feel pleased with you for letting it go as far as it has. You’d lose your job, and you’re going to live, you know—you’re going to live....”
I was taken aback by this veiled threat in the midst of the pleasantry. It wasn’t fair play—not at all fair play. I recovered some of my old alarm, remembered that she really was a dangerous person; that ...
“But I sha’n’t hurt Callan,” she said, suddenly, “you may make your mind easy.”
“You really won’t?” I asked.
“Really not,” she answered. It relieved me to believe her. I did not want to quarrel with her. You see, she fascinated me, she seemed to act as a stimulant, to set me tingling somehow—and to baffle me.... And there was truth in what she said. I had let myself in for it, and I didn’t want to lose Callan’s job by telling him I had made a fool of him.
“I don’t care about anything else,” I said. She smiled.