Nemecia sulkily picked up the knife. Then she stood erect facing Julie. “My people owe you a debt which they have forgotten. Take then as my share of it, this creature’s life, for,”—in a fresh flare—“I meant surely to kill him this very night!”
She turned indifferently out of the door.
Julie waited till she was out of sight. “I can go to him now!” she cried to herself. She started forth for the Palacio. Fortunately it was an hour when there would be many people in the building.
There were two Filipino clerks in the office with Purcell. Julie advanced, with head uplifted, to the desk where he sat. He looked at her an instant and in the flash of his expression, Julie saw how thoroughly he knew he had done his work.
“I’ve come to pay you back your money!” She handed him several checks. “You will please cash these. And you will give me a receipt.”
The note of calm authority in her tone clearly puzzled him. He busied himself in a slight confusion with the safe.
The transaction finished, Julie’s spirits rose. There were dangerous lights playing in her green eyes. “You have said some unspeakable things about me, things that you knew to be utterly false! You are a liar, of course, and you believe me incapable of defending myself. In this country too, where as you know,” she looked at him steadily, “one can so cheaply buy one’s revenge.”
Purcell paled. She saw he had understood.
“I did not expect my remarks to be repeated broadcast. You did borrow money from me—and as you must be well aware, the right sort of women do not resort to such expedients.”
The girl looked hard at him and at the thought he read in her mind, a painful dark red dyed his face.