Enid Crofton got up. Though she was shaking—shaking all over—she walked swiftly across her little hall into the dining-room. There she sat down at the writing-table, and took up the telephone receiver. "9846 Regent."
It was the number of Harold Tremaine's club. She thought he would almost certainly be there just now.
She then hung up the receiver again, and, going to the door which led into the kitchen, she opened it: "Don't bring in my supper yet. I'll ring, when I'm ready for it." She then went back to the little writing-table and waited impatiently.
At last the bell rang.
"I want to speak to Captain Tremaine. Is he in the Club? Can you find him?"
She felt an intense thrill of almost superstitious relief when the answer came: "Yes, ma'am. He's in the Club. I'll go and fetch him."
She remembered with relief that Tremaine had told her that no one could overhear, at any rate at his end, what was being said or answered through the telephone—but she also remembered that it was not the same here, in The Trellis House.
Judging others by herself, as most of us do in this strange world, she felt sure that her two young servants were listening behind the door. Still, in a sense there was nothing Enid Crofton liked better than pitting her wits against other wits. So when she heard the question, "Who is it?" she simply answered, "Darling! Can't you guess?"
In answer to his rapturous assent, she said quietly, "I've made up my mind to do what you wish."
And then she drank in with intense delight the flood of eager, exultant words, uttered with such a rush of joy, and in so triumphant a tone, that for a moment she thought that they must be heard, if not here, then there, if not there, then here. But, after all, what did it matter? She would have left this hateful place for ever to-morrow!