Page:Rowland--The closing net.djvu/28

16 "All right," said I. "Get your maillot, but be quick about it, for we haven't much time."

Léontine spun about with her eyes flashing and her cheeks all aglow. "Here is a plan," says she. "What if I order the motor and we all go down together? The rest of you can wait near by while we go in and get the stuff. Then we will come back here and finish our supper-party."

Everybody howled with delight. It was crazy, but crazy games made on the spur of the moment have always appealed to me, and besides, I felt a sort of national pride in showing those foreign crooks how we do things at home.

It wasn't long before we heard the girls laughing in the antechamber and here was Léontine, standing in the doorway like some wonderful statue of a woman carved in coal. Her full-length black maillot began with a hood which covered all of her head but the face, encased her straight round neck, and swept in lovely curves right to the floor, clothing every inch of her but the white, gleaming face. She wore a little black silk mask, and her eyes blazed through the oval slits like two quivering jewels, while her red lips curled up in a sort of mocking smile.

For a moment everybody was speechless, sheer dumb with the wonder of her. Then I heard Ivan gasp under his breath,

"La femme du diable!"

Body o' me! But she looked like the devil's wife. She wasn't divine by a long shot, and certainly she wasn't human! Just for a moment she stood there, enjoying the effect she made, then she picked up a