“I can say nothing of the future,” she answered slowly. “For your own sake—indeed, for mine also—do not come here again. Promise me, I beg of you.”
This request was the more curious in the light of recent events. Was it that she could not bear me to kiss the hand that had attempted to slay me?
“All this is very strange, Eva,” I said with a sudden seriousness. “I cannot understand your attitude in the least. Why not be more explicit?”
The heart of man is an open page to women. Love, though greatest of all selfish ecstasies, must yet have self-forgetfulness. She had none. She glanced at me and seemed to divine my thoughts. She cast a furtive look across the room to the lawn beyond, and I read on her face the birth of some new design.
“I have been quite explicit,” she laughed, with a strenuous attempt to preserve her self-control. “I merely give you advice to keep away from this house.”
“Yes, but you give me no reason. You do not speak plainly and openly,” I protested.
“One cannot speak ill of those of whose hospitality one is partaking,” she answered with a calm smile. “Is it not sufficient for the present that you are warned?”
“But why?” I demanded. “I am always a welcome guest here.”
Again she smiled, with a strange curl of the lip, I thought.
“I do not deny that,” she answered. “Have I not, however, already pointed out that treachery may be marvellously well concealed?”