Curtis was surprised. He could not see her kindling eyes, her parted lips, the color which was suffusing forehead and cheeks, and he rather expected to hear subdued sobbing.
"I should hate to have you dislike me as thoroughly as you dislike that fellow," he said.
"I never could. It cannot be in your nature to treat women as he treats them. I do hope you have hurt him."
"I am certain of that, at any rate," laughed Curtis. "He impressed me as weighing a hundred and ninety pounds or thereabouts, and, if it will afford you the slightest gratification, I'll take the first opportunity to work out the approximate force required to drive back a moving body of that weight while traveling forward, say, fifteen miles an hour. There are angles of resistance to be calculated, too, so it offers a decent problem. Meanwhile, the vital question is—where are we going?"
Hermione was easily chaffed out of her bellicose mood. He could picture the droop in the corners of her mouth as she said forlornly:
"I do not know."
"It is evident," he went on, "that they procured the minister's address from the elevator man at your dwelling."
"Ah, that Rafferty! Wait till I see him," broke in Marcelle.
"Please do not scarify Rafferty, if that is his name. I am much more to be blamed than he, because I assured your mistress that the Earl and Count Vassilan were safe on board the Switzerland till the morning. I see now that they telegraphed for a tug, and it is best to assume that they have been kept informed by wireless of nearly every move in the game.… You agree with me, I suppose, Lady Hermione, that your return to 1000 59th Street is out of the question?"
"It is, if this mock marriage is to serve any real purpose," she said.