“Yes. But it appears that you have not heeded me,” she sighed. “I fear, Ralph, that you will regret some day.”
“Why should I regret? Your fears are surely baseless.”
“No,” she answered decisively. “They are not baseless. I have reasons—strong ones—for urging you to break your connexion with him. He is no friend to you.”
I smiled. I knew quite well that he was no friend of hers. Once or twice of late he had said in that peevish snappy voice of his:
“I wonder what that woman, Mrs. Courtenay’s sister, is doing? I hear nothing of her.”
I did not enlighten him, for I had no desire to hear her maligned. I knew the truth myself sufficiently well.
But turning to her I looked straight into her dark luminous eyes, those eyes that held me always as beneath their spell, saying:
“He has proved himself my best friend, up to the present. I have no reason to doubt him.”
“But you will have. I warn you.”
“In what manner, then, is he my enemy?”