“What is it? Something for me?”
“There’s a gentleman wants to see you, ma’am.”
“I can’t see anyone. I told them so at the bureau. Where is he?”
“Down below, ma’am.”
“Send him away. Say I’m still asleep. Say—”
She noticed for the first time that the boy had a card. He had been hiding it pressed to a salver against his trouser-leg. Now he lifted the salver. But Miss Van Tuyn did not take the card. She was certain the man below was Arabian.
“I can’t see anyone. It’s much too early.”
“The gentleman said it was very important, ma’am, and I was to say so,” said the page, with a certain chubby dignity that was almost official.
Miss Van Tuyn was now terrified. It was Arabian, and he would not go till he had seen her. She was certain of that. He would wait downstairs. She would be a prisoner in her rooms. All her fear of him seemed to rush upon her intensified, a fear such as she had never felt before. She got up tingling all over, and with a feeling as if all the blood had suddenly sunk away from her temples.
“You must tell him—”