Bah! such a man as Paul Prescott might be engaged in half a dozen little love affairs at one and the same time.
He would finally abandon all the rest for the charmer who held his fickle heart most heavily chained, or else whose bank account was the most promising.
To a man of Darrell’s steadiness of purpose, there was something almost revolting about such a character as this, and yet he found certain things to study in the artist’s face—points that rather puzzled him when scrutinized.
The man was worthy of being analyzed. There might be more to him than even appeared upon the surface.
Darrell was wide awake, although he pretended to be already under the magic influence.
He was soothed by the odor of the opium, without giving way to it, and watched the couple across the way.
The hanging curtains partly concealed him, and he was sure a note passed from one to the other. If the girl thus heavily veiled was in the charge of the widow, the latter did not seem in a condition to watch over her ward, for she had given herself up wholly to her dreams.
In the silence of this den of human misery, where each victim was bound to his neighbor by the same chains that made him a slave, a long stride was taken on this night toward the oblivion of death.
Strange scenes sometimes occur in these places, and one was on the tapis for this night.
So interested had the detective been in watching the couple opposite, that he seldom glanced at any of the others.