We were rather silent on the way home. I was planning an interview with Sara, my first move in the difficult and dangerous game that I had set myself to play. I was frightened, yes, but terribly interested. I left Mrs. Brane after lunch and went down to the kitchen. Sara was seated by the table peeling potatoes, the most commonplace and respectable of figures. She lifted her large, handsome face and stood up, setting down the bowl.
“Go on with your work, Sara,” I said, “I shall not keep you but a moment.”
She sat down and I stood there, my hand resting on the table. My heart was beating fast, and I was conscious of a tightening in my throat. Unconsciously, I narrowed my eyes, and tightened my lips till my expression must have been something like that mask of wickedness I had seen in the doorway of the book-room. I spoke in a low, hard voice, level and cruel, and I put my whole theory to the test at once; foolishly enough, I think, for I might have given myself away if my guess had not been correct in this detail.
“How goes it, Maida?” I asked. It was the name the Baron had used.
She started; the knife stopped its work. She looked up, glancing nervously about the room.
“God!” she said. “You're gettin' nervy, ain't you?”
No speech could have been more unlike the speech of the smooth and respectful Sara.
I smiled as evilly as I could. “Once in a while I take a risk, that's all. Don't refer to it again. But answer my questions, will you? Anything new?”
“God, no! I'm about done with this game. Housework is no holiday to me, and since they nabbed the Nobleman my heart's gone out of me. Our game's about up, unless we get that—“here she used a string of vile, whispered epithets—“this afternoon, and I don't think it's likely. He's got nine lives, that cat of a Hovey!”
My heart thumped. I dared not ask her meaning.