“I will defend myself to the limit. I've really been easy with you. You see, you don't know anything about me. Least of all what harm I can do. You'd be a child in my hands. Turn against me and I'll get you if it takes me ten years. You'll never be safe from me. Never for a minute.”
He looked irresolutely down at the lustrous jewels in his hand.
“You had these sewed in your skirt. There must be more there.”
“Are you proposing to search me?”
“No—but”.... His black youth was stabbing now, viciously, at his boyishly sensitive heart; but still, in a degree, he met it. “I'm going to Mr. Doane. I don't care what happens to me.”
He even moved a soft step toward the door; but paused, lingered, watching her. For she was rummaging among the covers of her bed. He caught a brief glimpse of a hand-bag that she meant him not to see. She took from a bottle two green tablets. Then she faced him.
To the startled question of his eyes she replied: “They're corrosive sub mate. I shall take them now unless you—give me the pearls. If you want to have my death on your hands, take them to Mr. Doane. But it's only fair to tell you that if you do it—if you mix in this business—your own life won't be worth a nickel. They'll get you, and they'll get the pearls. You're caught in a bigger game than you can play.
“Get out, while you can”—as the low swift words came she reached out and took the pearls from his nerveless hand—“and I'll protect you. You can have your pretty Manchu girl. You can ride around in a rickshaw and look at old temples and buy embroideries. Just don't mix in affairs that don't concern you.”
“I”—he was pressing a hand to a white forehead—“I've got to think it over.”
“Remember this, too”—she laid a hand on his arm—“you could never fasten anything on me. The proof doesn't exist. Nobody can identify unmounted pearls. As a matter of fact I got these”... during a brief but to her perverse imagination an intensely pleasing moment she closed her eyes and lived again through that strange scene on the steps of the pavilion; again in vivid fancy rolled over the inert body that had been Tex Connor, took the amazing cape of pearls from his shirt and rolled the body heavily back...."I got these from a man I knew—an old friend. Just mind your own business and no one will harm you. But remember, you're walking among dangers. Step carefully. Keep quiet. Better go now.”