“Now—take your life!” said Ilse Dumont between her teeth. “There’s the door! Go out!”—following her with blazing eyes—“Stop! Stand where you are until I come!”
Then she came quickly to where Neeland stood, astonished; and thrust two automatic pistols into his hands.
“Get Sengoun,” she whispered. “Don’t go down-stairs, for God’s sake. Get to the roof, if you can. Try—oh, try, try, Neeland, my friend!” Her voice trembled; she looked into his eyes—gave him, in that swift regard, all that a woman withholds until the right man asks.
Her lips quivered; she turned sharply on her heel, went to the outer hallway, where the other woman stood motionless.
“What am I to do with you?” demanded Ilse Dumont. “Do you think you are going out of here to summon the police? Mount those stairs!” 370
The woman dropped her hand on the banisters, heavily, set foot on the first stair, then slowly mounted as though her little feet in their dainty evening slippers were weighted with ball and chain.
Ilse Dumont followed her, opened a door in the passage, motioned her to enter. It was a bedroom that the electric light revealed. The woman entered and stood by the bed as though stupefied.
“I’ll keep my word to you,” said Ilse Dumont. “When it becomes too late for you to do us any mischief, I’ll return and let you go.”
And she stepped back across the threshold and locked the door on the outside.
As she did so, Neeland and Sengoun came swiftly up the stairs, and she beckoned them to follow, gathered the skirts of her evening gown into one hand, and ran up the stairs ahead of them to the fifth floor.