Her beauty was so dazzling, her personality so vivid, that Hugo Stein was moved and thrilled. Her first words were startling, and highly disagreeable to hear, but startling and disagreeable words do not prevent a man like Hugo Stein from pursuing the acquaintance of a woman so handsome as Bess Lukens.
“There’s nothing for you to be afraid of,” she said, in her rich and ringing voice. “There’s nothing here except a woman and a dead man.”
Hugo Stein was not a man to be frightened by either a woman or a dead man. He was puzzled and interested to the last degree by the unknown beautiful woman, who showed at the first glance, to his practised eye, that she was not a gentlewoman, nor was she a common woman either. He replied promptly and gallantly,—
“Truly, there is much to fear from a woman so beautiful as yourself. Tell me, Miss Bright Eyes, who are you, and what can Sir Hugo Egremont do for you?”
“As for who I am, ’tis easy told; perhaps you may have heard of me. I am known as Mademoiselle Luccheni at Paris,—of the King’s Opera,—just as you are known as Sir Hugo Egremont of Egremont. But I am in truth plain Bess Lukens, just as you are plain Hugo Stein.”
Hugo Stein’s face changed,—no man or woman ever called him by his true name, except to do him a mischief.
“Yes,” he said coolly, but with malice in his eye. “I have heard of you,—the daughter,—or is it the niece? of a turnkey in Newgate.”
“True,” replied Bess, “but like you, I’ve had a rise in life. How pleased my uncle the turnkey, and your mother, the harlot, would be if they could see us now!”
“Miss Lukens,” said Hugo Stein after a pause, “you are a very impudent hussy, and I shall leave you.”
He turned upon his heel to go.