"And you have yourself
to thank for your position, let me remind you; you would thrust yourself
in. I don't know what you are doing in the business--a ridiculous
mountebank in a leather cap and coat! It's a way you Yankees have,
meddling in things that don't concern you. You seem to think that you
have special rights under Providence, that you own everything in the
universe, even to the high seas. Well, we'll settle with your country
for its munitions and its notes and its driveling talk about atrocities
a little later, when we have finished up the Allies. And I'll deal with
you to-night if you dare to lift a hand."
There seemed only one answer possible, and my muscles were stiffening
for it when suddenly Miss Falconer's handkerchief, a mere wisp of linen
which she had been clenching between her fingers, dropped to the floor.
With a purely automatic movement, I bent to recover it for her; she
leaned down to receive it. Her pale face and lovely dilated eyes were
close to me for a fleeting second, and though her lips did not move, I
seemed to catch the merest breath, the faintest gossamer whisper that
said:
"The stairs!"
Blenheim's gaze, full of suspicion, was upon us as we straightened, but
he could not possibly have heard anything; I had barely heard myself.
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