“Watched me!” he exclaimed, dismayed.
“Yes,” answered the girl, with a laugh. “Why, you speak as if she possessed the evil eye, or something! She’s smart and good-looking certainly, but I don’t think Liane need fear in her a rival.”
“Scarcely,” he answered, with a forced smile. But the alarming truth possessed him that Mariette had surreptitiously watched Brooker and himself before they had discovered her presence. He reproached himself bitterly for having gone to Monte Carlo that night, yet gambler that he was he had been unable to resist the temptation of the tables once again ere they left the Riviera.
But the woman known as “The Golden Hand” had watched them both, and by this time most probably knew where they were living. Neither he nor the Captain had any idea that Mariette Lepage still hovered about the tables, or they would certainly never have set foot inside the Principality.
Liane in her cool summer-like gown sat in a low wicker lounge-chair and listened to this description of the notorious woman without uttering a word. She dared not trust herself to speak lest she should divulge the secret within her breast. She had grown uncomfortable, and only breathed more freely when, ten minutes later, they made their adieux and began to descend the Boulevard back to Nice.
“So your old friend Mariette has seen you!” she exclaimed, as soon as they had walked twenty paces from the house.
“Yes,” he snapped. “Another illustration of my accursed luck. The sooner we leave Nice the better.”
“Very well,” she answered, with a weary sigh. She did not tell him that she had already ascertained from George Stratfield that “The Golden Hand” had been to Nice.
“We must leave for Paris,” he said briefly. “It will not be wise to run too great a risk. If she chooses she can make things extremely unpleasant.”
“For you?”