"Or what if I were to suggest—delicately—that you're within an Inche of the end of your rope?" the little man pursued, grimly playful. "Give you an Inche and—what will you take, eh?"
With an inarticulate cry, Shaynon's fist shot out as if to strike his persecutor down; but in mid-air P. Sybarite's slim, strong fingers closed round and inflexibly stayed his enemy's wrist, with barely perceptible effort swinging it down and slewing the man off poise, so that perforce he staggered back against the stone of the window's deep embrasure.
"Behave!" P. Sybarite counselled evenly. "Remember where you are—in a lady's presence. Do you want to go sprawling from the sole of my foot into the presence of more than one—or over this railing, to the sidewalk, and become food for inch-worms?"
Releasing Shaynon, he stepped back warily, anticipating nothing less than an instant and disgraceful brawl.
"As for my mask," he said—"if it still annoys you—"
He jerked it off and away.
Escaping the balustrade, it caught a wandering air and drifted indolently down through the darkness of the street, like an errant petal plucked from some strange and sinister bloom of scarlet violence.
"And if my face tells you nothing," he added hotly, "perhaps my name will help. It's Sybarite. You may have heard it!"
As if from a blow, Shaynon's eyes winced. Breathing heavily, he averted a face that took on the hue of parchment in the cold light striking up from the electric globes that march Fifth Avenue. Then quietly adjusting his crumpled cuff, he drew himself up.
"Marian," he said as soon as he had his voice under control, "since you wish it, I'll wait for you in the lobby, downstairs. As—as for you, sir—"