Page:Braddon--The Trail of the Serpent.djvu/111

Rh person to whom it would be utterly vain to speak of honour, chivalry, and gentlemanly feeling—since they are doubtless words of which you do not even know the meaning—you wish to turn the possession of this secret to account. In other words, you desire to be bought off. You know, then, what I can afford to pay you. Be good enough to say how much will satisfy you, and I will appoint a time and place at which you shall receive your earnings. You will be so kind as to lose no time. It is on the stroke of twelve; in a moment Monsieur De Lancy will be here. He may not be disposed to make so good a bargain with you as I am. He might be tempted to throw you out of the window."

She has said this with entire self-possession. She might be talking to her modiste, so thoroughly indifferent is she in her high-bred ease and freezing contempt for the man to whom she is speaking. As she finishes she sinks quietly into her easy-chair. She takes up a book from a little table near her, and begins to cut the leaves with a jewelled-handled paper-knife. But the battle has only just begun, and she does not yet know her opponent.

He watches her for a moment; marks the steady hand with which she slowly cuts leaf after leaf, without once notching the paper; and then he deliberately seats himself opposite to her in the easy-chair on the other side of the fireplace. She lifts her eyes from the book, and looks him full in the face with an expression of supreme disdain; but as she looks, he can see how eagerly she is also listening for her husband's step. He has a blow to strike which he knows will be a heavy one.

"Do not, madame," he says, "distract yourself by listening for your husband's arrival. He will not be here to-night."

This is a terrible blow. She tries to speak, but her lips only move inarticulately.

"No, he will not be here. You do not suppose, madame, that when I contemplated, nay, contrived and arranged an interview with so charming a person as yourself, I could possibly be so deficient in foresight as to allow that interview to be disturbed at the expiration of one quarter of an hour? No; Monsieur Don Giovanni will not be here to-night."

Again she tries to speak, but the words refuse to come. He continues, as though he interpreted what she wants to say,—

"You will naturally ask what other engagement detains him from his lovely wife's society? Well, it is, as I think, a supper at the Trois Frères. As there are ladies invited, the party will no doubt break up early; and you will, I dare say, see Monsieur de Lancy by four or five o'clock in the morning."

She tries to resume her employment with the paper-knife, but this time she tears the leaves to pieces in her endeavours to cut