There was a moment's pause. The two women eyed each other as accomplished swordsmen may on the eve of a duel. Very pale, very proud, looked my lady. She disliked and distrusted this brilliant, black-eyed Miss Silver, and Miss Silver knew it well.
"You wish to speak with me, Miss Silver?" my lady said, in her most superb manner.
"Yes, my lady—most particularly, and quite alone. I beg your pardon, but your maid is not within hearing, I trust?"
"We are quite alone," very coldly. "Speak out; no one can overhear you."
"I do not care for myself," Sybilla said, her glittering black eyes meeting the proud gray ones. "It is for your sake, my lady."
"For my sake!" in haughty amaze. "You can have nothing to say to me, Miss Silver, the whole world may not overhear. If you intend to be impertinent, I shall order you out of the room."
"One moment, my lady; you go too fast. The whole world may not overhear the message Mr. Parmalee sends you by me."
"Ah!" my lady recoiled as though an adder had stung her—"always that man! Speak out, then"—turning swiftly upon her husband's protégée—"what is the message this man sends me by you?"
"That if you do not meet him within two days, he will sell your secret to the highest bidder."
Sybilla delivered, word for word, the words of the American—cruelly, slowly, significantly—looking her still straight in the eyes. Those clear gray eyes flashed with a fierce, defiant light.