he had almost made up his mind to knock again, the door was opened slowly and for a small way only. Still, he was not dismayed by the inhospitable meagreness of this narrow aperture but, wise in his experience, immediately thrust his foot into the opening.
'Good evening, dear lady,' he simpered. 'Are you at home?'
'What do you want?' said a hard, low-toned, female voice from the interior darkness.
'The sight of your pretty face, my deah,' he replied, in his best manner. 'Come along now. Don't be so cruel and heartless. Give me a look at your bright eyes or your neat ankles.'
'Who are you?' repeated the other harshly. 'Who told you to come here?'
'I'm an old inhabitant, sweet creature, lately returned from abroad and not without the wherewithal.' He jingled the money in his pocket enticingly and laughed with a short, empty laugh.
There was a pause, then the voice said firmly:
'Go away! You've made a mistake. This is a respectable house. We'll have nothing to do with you whatever,' and she made as though to close the door in his face. In the ordinary way he would have been deterred by this rebuff and would undoubtedly have slunk off, but now his foot prevented the door from closing and he replied, with some show of bluster:
'Not so fast, ma'am. Don't be so high and mighty! You're dealing with a tough customer here. Let me in or I'll make such a hullabaloo you'll have the whole street at your door. Yes, I'll bring the town down about your ears.'
'Go away at once or I'll get the police on you,' said the other in a less firm tone, after a momentary silence that seemed fraught with indecision.
He winked triumphantly at the darkness, feeling that he was winning, realising proudly that he could always bluff the women.
'No, you won't,' he replied craftily; 'you don't want any police down here. I know that better than you do. I'm the gentleman you want to-night just wait till you see.'
SiHe made no answer and, her silence encouraging him, her reticence serving to excite his lust, he muttered:
'I'll come and take a peep at you, Dolly,' and, pressing his shoulder into the slight open space of the doorway, he forcibly insinuated himself into the hall. There he blinked for a moment in the light of the lamp which she held in her hand and which was now thrust forward into his face; then his jaw dropped and he stared boorishly, incredulously at her. Across the thrawn, forbidding face of the woman a gross purple narvus lay like a livid weal, stretching like a living fungus which had eaten into and destroyed her cheek and neck. It fascinated him morbidly with the attraction of a repulsive curiosity.
'What do you want?' she repeated in a rasping voice. He was disconcerted; with an effort, he removed his eyes from her face, but as he gazed around the wide, high-vaulted hall, his confidence returned at the thought that there were other rooms in the house, rooms sealed with an alluring mystery. She herself was only the bawd; there must be plenty of fun waiting for him behind one of these doors in the house. He looked at her again and immediately her disfigurement obtruded itself upon him so forcibly that he could not release his attention from it and, despite himself, muttered stupidly:
'Woman, that's an awful mark on your face. How did ye come to get it?'
'Who are you?' she repeated, harshly. 'For the last time I ask you, before I have you thrown out.'
He was off his guard.
'My name's Brodie Matthew Brodie,' he mumbled in an absent, sottish voice. 'Where are the young wenches? It's them I want to see! You'll not do!'
As he spoke, she in her turn stared at him and, in the flickering light of the lamp, it seemed as if amazement and agitation in turn swept across her grim features. At length she said slowly:
'I told you that you had mistaken the kind of house that this is! You'll not find much to amuse you here. Nobody lives in this house but me. That's the plain truth. I advise you to leave at once.”
'I don't believe you,' he cried sullenly, and, his anger growing, he set up a great hubbub, shouting, 'You're a liar, I tell you. Do you think I'm a fool to be put off with a yarn like that? I'll see you further before I go away. Do you think I'll let myself be put off by a thing like you? Me that's travelled to the other end of the world. No! I'll break into every room in this damned house sooner than be beat.'
At the uproar which he created a voice called out from upstairs and immediately she thrust her hand over his face.
'Shut your mouth, will you,' she cried fiercely. 'You'll have the whole place about my ears. Who the devil are you to come in and disturb an honest woman like this? Here! Wait in this room till you're sober. Then I'll have it out with you. Wait until I come back or it'll be the worse for you.' She seized him by the arm and, opening a door in the lobby, pushed him roughly into a small sitting room.
'Wait here, I tell you, or you'll regret it all your born days,' she shot at him, with a forbidding look, as she shut the door and enclosed him within the cold, uninviting chamber. She was gone before his fuddled brain had realised it and now he looked round the small cold parlour into which he had been thrust with a mixture of disgust and annoyance. Luscious memories recurred to him of other houses where he had moved in a whirl of mad music and wild, gay laughter, where bright lights had danced above the rich warmth of red plush and eager, undressed women had vied with each other for the richness of his favours. He had not been three minutes in the room before his drunken senses collected themselves and, as his mind realised the absurdity of having permitted himself a man of such experience to be shut up out of the way in this small cupboard, his will shaped itself towards a fiery resolution. They would not close him up in this box of a place with fine sport going on under his very nose! He moved forward and, with a crass affectation of caution, opened the door and tiptoed once more into the wide lobby, where a faint murmur of voices came to him from upstairs. Surreptitiously he looked around. There were three other doors opening out of the hall and he surveyed them with a mixture of expectation and indecision, until, choosing the one immediately opposite, and advancing carefully, he turned the handle and looked in. He was rewarded only by the cold darkness of a musty, unoccupied room. Closing this door, he turned to the one which adjoined it, but again he was disappointed, for he discovered here only the empty kitchen of the house; and swinging around with a snort of disgust, he plunged heedlessly into the last room.
Immediately he stood stock still, whilst the thrill of a delicious discovery ran through him. Before his eyes, seated reading a news-paper beside the comfortable fire, was a girl. Like a frantic searcher who has at last discovered treasure he uttered deep in his throat a low exultant cry and remained motionless, filling himself with her beauty, fascinated by the warm reflection of the firelight upon the soft curve of her pale cheek, noting her slender body, the shapely curve of her ankles, as, still unconscious of him, she held her feet to the fire. She was attractive and, seen through the haze of his distorted, craving senses, she became to him at once supremely beautiful and desirable. Slowly he advanced towards her. At the sound of his step she looked up, her face at once became disturbed, and she dropped her paper, saying quickly, 'This room is private, reserved.'
He nodded his head wisely, as he replied:
'That's right. It's reserved for me and you. Don't be afraid; nobody will disturb us.' He sat down heavily on a chair close to her and tried to take her hand in his.
'But you can't come in here!' she protested in a panic. 'You've no right to do such a thing. I'll I'll call the landlady.'
She was as timid as a partridge and, he told himself greedily, as smooth and plump. He longed to bite the round contour of her shoulder.
'No! my dear,' he said thickly. 'I've seen her already. We had a nice long talk outside. She's not bonny, but she's honest. Yes! she's got my money and I've got you.'
'It's impossible! You're insulting me,' she cried out. 'There's been a mistake, I never set eyes on you before, I'm expecting some one here any minute.'
'He can wait till I've gone, dearie,' he replied coarsely. 'I like the look of you so well I would never let you go now!'
She jumped to her feet indignantly.
'I'll scream,' she cried. 'You don't know what you're, about. He'll kill you if he comes in.'
'He can go to hell, whoever he is. I've got you now,' shouted Matt, gripping her suddenly before she could shriek.
