“Unimportant!” she cried, again opening her eyes and making a quick gesture which showed foreign residence. “Is Mr Statham’s secretary an unimportant man?”
“Certainly.”
“But he is of importance to one person at least.”
“To whom?”
For a moment she did not answer. Then, she turned her dark eyes full upon his, and replied:
“To the woman who loves him!”
Charlie started perceptibly. What could the girl mean? Did she mean that she herself entertained affection for him, or was she merely hinting at what she believed might possibly be the case—that he was beloved.
He was more than ever dumbfounded by her attitude. There was something very mysterious about her—a mystery increased by her own sweet, piquante and unconventional manner. In his whole career he had never met with a similar adventure. At one moment he doubted her genuineness, but at the next he reflected how, at the first moment of their meeting, she had been extremely anxious to speak with him alone. Her attitude was of one who had some confidential information to impart—something no doubt in the interests of the world-renowned firm of Statham Brothers.
Other secret agents of Sam Statham whom he had seen on their visits to Park Lane had been mostly men and women advanced in age, for the most part wearing an outward aspect of severe respectability. Some were, however, the reverse. One was a well-known dancer at the music-halls of Paris and Vienna, whose pretty face looked out from postcards in almost every shop on the Continent.
But the question was, who could be this dainty girl who called herself Lorena?