The cool audacity of her manner and commands diverted him. He perceived that she had no intention of paying him. “The cocotte has never been born,” he thought, “who could hold a candle to a great lady for impudence.”
If she had asked him to sit down he still would have refrained from troubling her; but she said no syllable that was civil; she continued to look at her creditor with haughty impatience.
“Be quick about what you have to say then,” she remarked; “I can only stay a few moments here; I am going to church.”
A creditor, if deftly treated as a Buddha of power and sanctity, may be disarmed, for, although a creditor, he is human. But if he be “cheeked” and treated as of no importance he is naturally moved to use his thunderbolt and assert his godhead. Beaumont sat down without invitation or permission, and she, to show her disgust at such familiarity, rose and remained standing.
“Madame,” he said very politely, “have you forgotten the paper which you signed?”
She was silent, darting azure lightning on him from her eyes. She did not distinctly remember what she had signed. She had not very clearly understood it at the time of signing; it had been all done in such a hurry, and the cab had been waiting for her in the rain, and she had wanted to get back to the Bristol unseen and dress for a dinner at the English Embassy, and the time to do so had been very short. Certainly she remembered writing her name; but the words above her name she did not recall; it was more than four years ago.
Beaumont saw that she had forgotten.
“I warned you of the importance of what you signed,” he said politely. “If you desire now to read it over——”
“Is that what I signed?” she said eagerly; she thought it would not be difficult to get it away from him; he looked very weak and small, and must, she thought, be seventy if he were a day.
Beaumont smiled.