CHAPTER XI.
'I DISLIKE A MYSTERY.'
I had not meant to do it, but while I stood there with her clear brown eyes, not repellent but fearless and full of dignity, fixed upon my face in polite but guarded inquiry, the determination suddenly seized me to be as frank and truthful in dealing with this frank and truthful woman as I had a right to be.
I had meant to return the bag, ask her pardon for tampering with its contents, and say no more; only keeping as much as possible an eye to her welfare and safety if I saw it menaced. Now I meant something more; and so, while she held my card in daintily gloved fingers and looked at me with level, questioning eyes, I said, with the thought of the approaching brunette underlying my words:
'Miss Jenrys, I am the person who was of some small assistance a few days ago when you came near incurring serious injury at the hands of a pair of Turks and a sedan-chair.' I saw a look of remembrance, if not of recognition, flash into her face, and I hurried on. 'I do not mention this as entitling me to your notice, but I ask you to accept my word as that of one having no personal motive save the desire to serve you, and to listen to me for a few moments.'
She was scanning my face nervously, and now she said:
'I do not recall your face, though I remember the circumstance to which you refer. If you are the gentleman who held back that reckless foreigner with a strong arm, and so saved me from something more serious than a little pain in the shoulder, I am certainly your debtor, and I am glad of this opportunity to thank you.'
A little back of the place where she stood, in a corner, hemmed in on one side by a long glass case of exhibits of various sorts, was an armchair, placed there, doubtless, for the ease of the person in charge of said case and its contents. There was no such person present, however, at that hour, and I pointed toward the chair, and said:
'If you will kindly take that seat, so that I may not feel that I am compelling you to stand, I will not detain you long.'
She turned toward the seat, looked at it, at me, and finally beyond me and across the room, as if debating, and half inclined to pass me and escape; and then I saw a sudden withdrawal of the eyes and a compression of the lips, slight but perceptible. She turned as if in haste, almost, and seated herself in the chair, first turning it toward the windows so that her back would be toward the interior of the room, and then, to my surprise, she beckoned me, with a half-smile, to a place upon the window-seat, which would narrowly serve this purpose.