“No. To the next ball. He is in Paris,” she said simply, without desire to discuss the man to whom she had engaged herself.
“And you do not regret his absence—eh?” remarked the Sicilian in a low voice, bringing his sallow, sinister face nearer to hers.
“I do not understand you,” she exclaimed, drawing herself up with some hauteur. “What is your insinuation?”
“Nothing,” was his low response. “You need not be offended, for I do not mean it in that sense. I merely notice how you are enjoying yourself this evening during his absence, and the conclusion is but natural.” And his face relaxed into a smile.
“Well,” she declared, as across her fair face fell a shadow of quick annoyance, “I consider, general, your remark entirely uncalled for.” And she rose stiffly to leave him.
But he only smiled again, a strange, crafty smile, that rendered his thin, sallow face the more forbidding, as he answered in a low voice, speaking almost into her ear, and fixing his eyes on hers—
“I may surely be forgiven as an old friend if I approach the truth in confidence, signora. You have accepted that man’s offer of marriage, but you have done so under direct compulsion. You desire to escape from your compact. You see I am aware of the whole truth. Well, there is one way by which you may escape. But recollect that what I tell you is in the strictest secrecy and confidence from your father—from everyone. I speak as your friend. There is a way by which you can avoid making this loveless alliance which is naturally distasteful to you—a way by which, if you choose to adopt it, you may save yourself!”
She faced the man, her brown eyes meeting his in speechless surprise and wonder at his enigmatical words.
What could he mean?