"Miss Warburton was here before ten o'clock, sir."
Miss Warburton was the fourth angel--an angel with another spick-and-span blouse, and the light of devotion in her eyes and the sound of it in her purling voice.
"Good morning," the gruff brute started. "Did I hear the telephone-bell just now?"
"Yes, sir. Doy and Doy have telephoned to say that Mr. Charles Prohack has just been in to see them, and they've referred him to you, and--and--"
"And what? And what? And what?" (A machine-gun.)
Instinctively Mr. Prohack threw away shame. Mimi was his minion. He treated her as an Oriental tyrant might treat the mute guardian of the seraglio, and told her everything,--that Charlie had forestalled them in the matter of the drains of the noble mansion, that Charlie had determined to destroy Doy and Doy, that he, Mr. Prohack, was caught in a trap, that there was the devil to pay, and that the finest lies that ingenuity could invent would have to be uttered. He abandoned all pretence of honesty and uprightness. Mimi showed no surprise whatever, nor was she apparently in the least shocked. She seemed to regard the affair as a quite ordinary part of the day's routine. Her insensitive calm frightened Mr. Prohack.
"Now we must think of something," said the iniquitous monster.
"I don't see that there need be any real difficulty," Mimi replied. "_You_ didn't know anything about my plot with Doy and Doy. I got the notion--quite wrongly--that you preferred not to have the house, and I acted as I did through an excess of zeal. I must confess the plot. I alone am to blame, and I admit that what I did was quite inexcusable."
"What a girl! What a girl!" thought Mr. Prohack. But there were limits to his iniquity, and he said aloud, benevolently, grandiosely: "But I did know about it. You as good as told me exactly what you meant to do, and I let you do it. I approved, and I am responsible. Nothing will induce me to let you take the responsibility. Let that be clearly understood, please."
He looked squarely at the girl, and watched with apprehension her aspiring nose rise still further, her delicate ruthless mouth become still more ruthless.
"Excuse me," she said. "My plan is the best. It's the obvious plan. Mr. Carrel Quire often adopted it. I'm afraid you're hesitating to trust me as I expect to be trusted. Please don't forget that you sacrificed an empire for me--I shall always remember that. And what's more, you said you expected from me absolute loyalty to your interests. I can stand anything but not being trusted--_fully_!"