She stooped forward to adjust her slipper. “To-night,” she repeated, “I must decide whether I dislike you more as the lover of this afternoon, the man of pleasure of this evening, or the spy of to-morrow.”
He put a strong hand on her shoulder. In an instant she had sprung to her feet.
“No!” she cried, imperiously, “I have had enough for one day of men who would storm a citadel by insolence. Leave me!”
“You are expecting some one?”
“And if I am?”
“Don’t torture me. Tell me who it is.”
“Perhaps you will have to wait till dawn or longer before you see him.”
“I will kill him, that is all,—kill him when he leaves this house.”
“I have no objection to that,” was the smiling answer. “One rake less in the world is a blessing for all women, honest or—” she fingered her rose caressingly.
“Is it one of those who were here to-night!” he demanded. “Perhaps that infernal libertine of a Vicomte de——”