“Never!”

Jill smiled icily.

“I thought as much.  You scoundrel!  So it is drugged, and I, having drunk it, would have lain unconscious at your mercy.  God! to think that such brutes as you are allowed to live.”

The man was watching the girl’s every movement, ready to spring like a cat from the area steps upon the unsuspecting sparrow in the road, but neither her eyes nor her hand moved as she continued speaking very gently.

“Listen!  I should have killed you myself to-night, feeling myself justified, so that other wretched girls should escape the fate you had prepared for me—­you, lower than the beasts of the field; but I am not going to do it, as happily I know of one more powerful than I who will enjoy it thoroughly.  Think of what I say when you see his messenger with your ring upon his finger, to-morrow or next month or next year perhaps—­and when your time comes, watch the procession of betrayed and tortured girls as they pass before you to catch your soul in their slim hands as it leaves your body.  Now! drink that coffee!”

But the man stood stock still, and Jill frowned, for she was not a paragon of patience at any time, and the obstinacy of the man fretted her already jagged nerves.

“Very well,” she said, “I give you one more chance.  If you refuse again I shall put a bullet straight through your head just between the eyebrows, as I shall now put one through that brooch kind of thing in your turban.”

There was another deafening report, and the turban flew from the oriental’s head just as a paper-bag will fly before a March wind.

“Go and pick that turban up and put it on your head.  Hurry now, or we shall have the police or someone coming to inquire about the shooting gallery.”

The eyes of the boa-constrictor in the Zoo were gems of humanity in comparison with those of the negroid-Egyptian’s as he turned to obey, and then stopped mulishly until a third little reminder chipped splinters from the marble at his heel, whereupon he stooped and recovered his headgear, minus the brooch, but plus a neat little hole fore and aft.

“Now come and drink the coffee!  It won’t be very nice as it is almost cold.  And remember in future if you are allowed to live, which I very much doubt, that such supreme indifference as mine could only possibly be the outcome of an absolute sense of perfect security.”

Jill patted the silly-looking little ivory and silver thing she held.

“You mongrel!” she continued sweetly, “I was simply playing with you until the right moment—­the coffee moment which I knew must happen—­should arrive in which to give you a lesson.  Why! when I saw your eyes in the restaurant I took my little friend from my pocket and made sure he was in order.  I may look a fool, and I may act in a manner still more foolish, but I am not exactly what you would call a born fool!  Now drink that, I am late already!  And don’t spill a single drop or I’ll shoot you on the spot!”