“Jeanne’s shadow!” she whispered to herself. “And such a shadow!” She shuddered at the very thought.
For this young man was not unknown to her. Not ten days before, in a crowded police court he had been pointed out to her as one of the most dangerous of criminals. He was not, at this time, in custody. Just why he was there she had not been told. Though suspected of many crimes, he had been detected in none of them.
“And it is he who has been dogging Jeanne’s footsteps!” she muttered. “I must warn her.
“He, too, it was, who sank the package in Snowball’s net. Meg’s birthday present.” She smiled. Then she frowned. “I must warn her. It may be a bomb. Stranger discoveries have been made.”
For a moment she considered another theory regarding the package. A moment only—then all this was driven from her mind. Drama was in the making, real drama from life. The evil-eyed one had paused before a doorway. He had remained poised there for a moment like a bird of prey: then the prey appeared, or so it seemed to Florence.
A short, foreign-appearing man with a military bearing all but came to a position of salute before the dark one of the evil eye. That one essayed a smile which, to the girl, seemed the grin of a wolf.
The short man appeared not to notice. He uttered a few words, waved his hands excitedly, then turned as if expecting to be led away.
“A Frenchman,” Florence thought. “Who else would wave his arms so wildly?”
Then a thought struck her all of a heap. “This is Jeanne’s little Frenchman, the one who bears a message for her, who has come all the way from France to deliver it.”
At once she became wildly excited. She had notions about that message. Strangely fantastic notions they were; this she was obliged to admit. But they very nearly drove her to committing a strange act. In a moment more she would have dashed up to the little Frenchman. She would undoubtedly have seized him by the arm and exclaimed: