“Whom do you think I am?” she asked.
“I have not forgotten,” he answered, “that women also are abstractors at times.”
She gazed at him wide open eyes, a look of horror on her face.
“You think I’m here to steal?”
“I wish I didn’t,” he answered. “It’s bad enough for a man, but for a woman like you. What am I to think when I find you hiding in a house where you have no right to be?”
“That’s the whole tragedy of it,” she exclaimed, “that I’ve no right to be here. I suppose I shall have to tell you everything. Can’t you guess who I am?”
Anthony Trent looked at the clock. Precious seconds were chasing one another into minutes and he had wasted too much time already.
“I don’t see that it matters at all to me,” he pointed to the safe, “I’m here on business.”
It annoyed him to feel he was not quite living up to the debonair heroes he had created once upon a time. They would not have permitted themselves to be so brusque with a lovely girl upon whose exquisite cheeks tears were still wet.
“You must listen to me,” she implored, “I’m Estelle Grandcourt. Now do you understand why I’ve come?”