"I've no more respect for women than I have for men, understand! If you ever get gay with me, I'll take your neck in my hand like that," he clenched his two fists together with a horribly suggestive motion and the frightened girl watched him, fascinated. "I'll break you as if you were a bit of china! I'll tear you as if you were a rag! You needn't think you'll ever get away from me--I'll follow you to the ends of the earth. You're paid like a queen and treated like a queen and you play straight--there was a man called 'Snow' Gregory once----"
The trembling girl was on her feet now, her face ashen white.
"I'm sorry, colonel," she faltered. "I didn't intend giving you offence. I--I----"
She was on the verge of tears when the colonel, with a quick gesture, motioned her back to the chair. His rage subsided as suddenly as it had risen.
"Now do as you're told, Lollie," he said calmly. "Get after that young fellow and don't come back to me until you've got him."
She nodded, not trusting herself to speak, and almost tiptoed from his dread presence.
"As to Maisie," he said, "why, you can leave Maisie to me."
Colonel Dan Boundary descended slowly from the Ford taxi-cab which had brought him up from Horsham station and surveyed without emotion the domicile of his partner. It was Colonel Boundary's boast that he was in the act of lathering his face on the tenth floor of a Californian hotel when the earthquake began, and that he finished his shaving operations, took his bath and dressed himself before the earth had ceased to tremble.
"I shall want you again, so you had better wait," he said to the driver and passed through the wooden gates toward Rose Lodge.
He stopped half-way up the path, having now a better view of the house. It was a red brick villa, the home of a well-to-do man. The trim lawn with its border of rose trees, the little fountain playing over the rockery, the quality of the garden furniture within view and the general air of comfort which pervaded the place, suggested the home of a prosperous City man, one of those happy creatures who have never troubled to get themselves in line for millions, but have lived happily between the four and five figure mark.
Colonel Boundary grunted and continued his walk. A trim maid opened the door to him and by her blank look it was evident that he was not a frequent visitor.