Then, faint but unmistakable, came a knock.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THROUGH THE DOOR
The knocking was not loud; it was merely a discreet tap; but there was a quality of hurry in it.
Annister, moving without sound on the thick pile of the rug, almost with the same motion turned the key and flung wide the door.
At first he could see nothing. The corridor, thick-piled with shadows even at high noon, showed merely as a darkling glimmer out of which there sprang suddenly a face, like a white, glimmering oval; a voice came, with a quick, hissing sibilance:
“Ssh! Quiet! I must not be seen! Or else he.... Close the door!”
The girl stepped inward swiftly, her white face turned to the man before her in a sort of frozen calm. Annister had a vague impression of having seen her somewhere before: that golden head beneath its close-fitting toque; the faint, remembered odor of fresh violets; the face, with a piquant loveliness just now, however, white and drawn; it was like a strain of music, heard and then forgotten.
Closing the heavy door and locking it, he turned swiftly to the girl.
“Well—?” he said, his gaze upon her in a cold, searching scrutiny. “Isn’t this a trifle—sudden?”
But the girl lifted a stony face.