‘Madam, I have that felicity. But why?’
‘Perhaps now we have come to terms, you may be good enough to tell me where it is.’
‘Curiosity, thy name is woman,’ said Slimm sententiously. ‘I am sorry I cannot gratify that little wish; but as you will doubtless be present at the opening ceremony, you will not object to restrain your curiosity for the present—Good-morning.’
Miss Wakefield watched our ambassador’s cab leave the door, and then threw herself, in the abandonment of her passion, upon the floor. In the impotence of her rage and despair, she lay there, rolling like a mad dog, tearing at her long nails with the strong uneven teeth. ‘What does he know?’ she hissed. ‘What can he know? Beaten, beaten at last!’
‘What a woman!’ soliloquised Slimm as he rolled back Londonwards. ‘I must have a cigar, to get the flavour out of my mouth.’
When he arrived at Mr Carver’s, he found Eleanor and her husband awaiting him with great impatience.
‘What cheer, my comrade?’ Edgar asked with assumed cheerfulness.
‘Considering the circumstances of the case and the imminent risk I ran, you might at least have expressed a desire to weep upon this rugged bosom,’ Slimm answered reproachfully. ‘I found the evil, like most evils, not half so bad when it is properly faced.’
‘And Miss Wakefield?’ asked Mr Carver anxiously.
‘Gentle as a sucking-dove—only too anxious to meet our views. In fact, I so far tamed her that she has made an appointment to come here to-morrow to settle preliminaries.’