Page:Burton Stevenson--The marathon mystery.djvu/111

Rh staring at this vision with open mouth brought me to my senses.

“I am very happy to have been there, madame,” I said, and started toward the door.

“But you will not go,” she protested. “Missié Tremaine will be here in a moment. He will desire to thank you.”

The words were accompanied by a smile there was no resisting. I faltered, stopped…

Higgins was still staring from the hall. Mrs. Tremaine stepped forward and calmly shut the door in his face.

In that instant a quick shiver ran through me, as though I had been suddenly imprisoned with a wild beast--a shiver that had in it something fearfully delightful. And let me add here that the emotion which Cecily, for so I came to know her, raised in me was not in the least admiration in the ordinary sense of the term, but rather an overpowering fascination, such as one sometimes feels in watching a magnificent tigress pacing back and forth in her cage; Such, I believe, was the feeling she inspired in most men; even in Tremaine himself.

She smiled at me again as she swept past me to a couch in one corner, and sank upon it.

“Sit, missié,” she said, and motioned me to a chair close at hand. “I was very lonesome; I was weary of talking to my own body.”

I cannot reproduce the soft dialect she spoke; any effort to do. so makes it appear grotesque, so I shall hot try. At first, it puzzled me occasionally, but I soon came to understand her perfectly.