Volume X Part 9 (2/2)
You began the business at the Wohenhoffens' ball. To-day you've merely put on the finis.h.i.+ng touches.”
”Oh, then I _am_ the woman you met at the masked ball?” she cried.
”Look me in the eye, and tell me you're not,” he defied her.
”I haven't the faintest interest in telling you I'm not. On the contrary, it rather pleases me to let you imagine that I am.”
”She owed me a grudge, you know. I hoodwinked her like everything,” he confided.
”Oh, did you? Then, as a sister woman, I should be glad to serve as her instrument of vengeance. Do you happen to have such a thing as a watch about you?” she inquired.
”Yes,” he said.
”Will you be good enough to tell me what o'clock it is?”
”What are your motives for asking?”
”I'm expected at home at five.”
”Where do you live?”
”What are the motives for asking?”
”I want to call upon you.”
”You might wait till you're invited.”
”Well, invite me--quick!”
”Never.”
”Never?”
”Never, never, never,” she a.s.severated. ”A man who's forgotten me as you have!”
”But if I've only met you once at a masked ball--”
”Can't you be brought to realise that every time you mistake me for that woman of the masked ball you turn the dagger in the wound?” she demanded.
”But if you won't invite me to call upon you, how and when am I to see you again?”
”I haven't an idea,” she answered, cheerfully. ”I must go now. Good-by.”
She rose.
”One moment,” he interposed. ”Before you go will you allow me to look at the palm of your left hand?”
”What for?”
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