"Pff! Is it likely? I may not give you the smallest hint; I'm bound in honour, so don't ask. But, if you mean the woman you are always helping out of tight places, is it likely? Look here, Paul, there is the paper and its duplicate. Here is a pen—a fountain. Read and sign it. But think before you sign."
There was silence for some time—silence except for the fitful return of the quieting storm outside, the crackle of hail on roof and pavement, and the last faint pattering of rain before it stopped. Ivor did not move from his posture, his head fallen forward on the table between the glasses, his face in his hands, his shoulders slightly convulsed once, then rigid. The Anarchist looked at him with a sort of weary patience, but said nothing.
At last Ivor got up and went to the window, drawing the back of his hand across his eyes, and looked out on the drenched gardens, where orange-trees and palms were still quivering in the half-spent blast and the hail lay in great stones like lumps of sugar on the sunlit grass. Then he turned back, read the papers carefully, and silently asked for the pen and signed, his signature being duly attested by de Konski, who gave him one paper and kept the other.
"Now you are free," the Anarchist said, shutting up the pen and pocketing one paper.
"Yes, free," repeated Ivor, like a man in a dream.
Chapter XVIII
The Only Hope
The storm had become so furious that the driver, after taking Ermengarde up from Rumpelmayer's, insisted on putting in for shelter under the crowded porte cochère of the nearest hotel.
"We might as well have stayed at Rumpelmayer's, after all," she murmured, the wretchedness evoked by reading the publisher's parcel rushing back upon her at the first dull moment. Rumpelmayer's bon-bons were pleasant, and several interesting glimpses of human nature had been given her there at the little tables which were unusually thronged for the time of day on account of the storm.—"It was at least warm at Rumpelmayer's. And what of Villa Gilardoni, Miss Somers?"
"Oh, Villa Gilardoni! What will you think of me, dear Mrs. Allonby? My cousin began talking of—family matters; they were absorbing; time somehow slipped away, and the storm rushed up so suddenly—it was impossible to stand against it——"