"Lover! Old Bellamy!" said the woman—and laughed.
"Not old enough, I guess, to help it."
"Nor you, Alban, to hide it," she retorted, groping at the rug which covered Amaryllis. "You gave her enough to keep her quiet another hour or two, didn't you?"
"It's hard to tell with a new subject," he answered. "Morphine is tricky in opiate doses."
Then Amaryllis knew she had been drugged, and to appear as when they last saw her, she half-opened her eyes, showed her teeth between drawn lips, and managed to keep her face rigid without even the quiver of an eyelid.
The rug was lifted for a moment and a face peered at hers; and she knew it for that of Sir Randal's late parlour-maid and lamented coffee-maker.
"She's just the same," said the woman. "Quite insensible, but not dead yet. Blast her!"
Melchard laughed. "The green-eyed monster as per usual," he said. "You ought to know me by this time, but you always mistake my universal admiration of beauty for the tender passion."
"Don't be a fool," she answered. "What are you going to do with her?"
Melchard was silent, and the woman spoke again.