“Excuse”—with a shrug. “What you mean?”
He spoke with sharp decision. “Your pretending not to know me, and all the rest, is what we would call a bluff. You are the woman I met on the railroad train six nights ago. You are the woman I talked with five nights ago. I know! There’s no use denying it!”
Her eyes did not flinch from his determined gaze; rather they took on a bored look.
“Pardon me,” said she quietly, “perhaps Meestair Drexel is one—what you call it—one bluffair?”
Drexel was not at all certain he was not just that. But his face showed none of his doubt.
“You are afraid of me because chance revealed to me your secret,” he went on. “Now I have come here to tell you that you have no reason to fear me. To tell you that you can trust me.”
She rose and looked at him haughtily. “You carry your amusement too far,” she said, lapsing into French. “I am tired. I beg that you will excuse me.”
She started to sweep out of the room, but Drexel blocked her way.
“I have come to tell you,” he went on doggedly, “that to relieve you of any sense of danger from me, I am willing, this minute, to yield myself your prisoner, to be held as long as you desire.”
“Will you let me pass!” said she.