The springs of emotion, touched potently as they had been by the surging recollections of the last half-hour, were faintly stirred again in Miss Redmond’s heart by the stranger’s grandiloquent words.  Unconsciously her features relaxed, though she did not reply.

“Again I pray mademoiselle to pardon me, but only a moment past I heard the song—­the song that might be the sigh of all the daughters of Italy.  Ah, Mademoiselle, it is wonderful!  But here in this so fresh country, this youthful, boisterous, too prosperous country, that song is like—­like—­like Arabian spices in a kitchen.  Is it not so?”

Miss Redmond was moving up the steps toward the entrance, hesitating between the desire to snub her interlocutor and to avoid the appearance of fright.  The man, meanwhile, moved easily beside her, courteously distant, discourteously insistent in his prattle.  But the motor-car was now not far away.

The stranger looked appealingly at her, seemingly sure of a humorous answering look to his pleasantry.  It was not wholly denied.  She yielded to a touch of amusement with a cool smile, and hastened her steps.  The man kept pace without effort.  Luckily, the car stood only a few feet away, with Renaud, or rather Hand, at the curb, holding open the door.  A vague bow and a lifting of the hat, and apparently the stranger went the other way.  She felt a foolish relief, and at the same instant noted with surprise that the cover of her car had been raised.

“Why did you raise the top?”

“It appeared to me, Mademoiselle, that it was likely to rain.”

“Put it down again.  It will not rain,” Miss Redmond was saying, when, from sidelong eyes, she saw that the stranger had not turned in the other direction, after all, but was almost in her tracks, as though he were stalking game.  With foot on the step she said sharply, but in a low voice, “To the Plaza quickly,” then immediately added, with a characteristic practical turn:  “But don’t get yourself arrested for speeding.”

“No, Mademoiselle, with this car I can make—­” Even as the chauffeur replied, Miss Redmond’s sharpened senses detected a passage of glances between him and the stranger, now close behind her.

She sprang into the tonneau and seized the door, but not before the man had caught at it with a stronger hold, and stepped in close after her.  The chauffeur was in his seat, the car was moving slowly, now faster and faster.  Suddenly the bland countenance slid very near her own, while firm hands against her shoulders crowded her into the farther corner of the tonneau.

“O Renaud—­Hand!” she cried, but the driver made no sign.  “Help, help!” she shrieked, but the cry was instantly choked into a feeble protest.  A mass of something, pressed to her mouth and nostrils, incited her to superhuman efforts.  She struggled frantically, fumbled at the door, tore at the curtain, and succeeded in getting her head for an instant at the opening, while she clutched her assailant and held him helpless.  But only for a moment.  The firm large hands quickly overpowered even the strength induced by frenzy, and in another minute she was lying unresisting on the soft cushions of the tonneau.