"But it's lunatic," said I.
"So much the better."
"But the proprieties."
She shifted her position, threw herself back in her chair, and flung out her hands towards me.
"You ought to be keeping Mrs. Jardine's boarding-house. What have Jaff Chayne and I to do with proprieties? Didn't he and I travel from Scutari to London?"
"Yes," said I. "But aren't things just a little bit different now?"
It was a searching question. Her swift change of expression from glow to defensive sombreness admitted its significance.
"Nothing is different," she said curtly. "Things are exactly the same." She bent forward and looked at me straight from beneath lowering brows. "If you think just because he and I are good friends now there's any difference, you're making a great mistake. And just you tell Barbara that."
"I will do so—" said I.
"And you can also tell her," she continued, "that Liosha Prescott is not going to let herself be made a fool of by a man who's crazy mad over another woman. No, sirree! Not this child. Not me. And as for the proprieties"—she snapped her fingers—"they be—they be anything'd!"