If you looked at her eyes you suspected, and if you looked at her throat you were certain that you, a respectable married man, had in you the makings of a criminal--the crime being bigamy. Also you would have sworn to her only too cheerfully that she was the only girl you had ever loved. With one look, remember!
Jemingham looked at her with a cold, impersonally appreciative eye, as he might have scrutinized a clock that was both beautiful and costly.
Miss Keogh understood it perfectly. It piqued her, accustomed as she was to instant adoration. Yet it was not entirely displeasing. This man knew as a connoisseur knows--with his head. That he had not permitted the silly heart to disturb the critical faculties was less flattering, of course. It deferred the inevitable triumph and thus would make it sweeter.
"Has Mrs. Morris told you what I should like you to do?" Jemingham's voice was coldly emotionless, and his gray eyes showed frosty lights.
"She has told me what you doubtless told her. But I must confess I am not very clear in my own mind," answered Miss Keogh.
Her voice was what you would have expected an artistic Providence to give her. It complemented the lips. If you closed your eyes and heard the voice you saw her eyes and felt the heavenly strawberries on your own lips!
Jemingham had not taken his cold eyes off her. He asked as if she were anybody--a woman of forty, for example, "Will you listen to me carefully?"
"I provide transportation, first-class, to London. I pay you thirty-five dollars a week for your services and allow ten dollars a day for hotel expenses, and so on. At the end of the case your contingent fee will depend upon your success. We don't want to skimp--but we are not throwing away money. It may be one hundred or five hundred dollars. But forget all about it."
"I have--in advance," said the marvel, calmly.
Jemingham looked at her steadily. She looked back unflinchingly and yet not at all defiantly as a lesser person would.
"If you accept my offer you will go when in London to Thornton's Hotel--an old-fashioned but very select hotel--where you will find a nice room reserved for you; I will cable for it. It will cost you a guinea a day--for the room and table board. You will thus have five dollars a day for cabs and incidentals. In that hotel lives Mrs. Margaret Deering, an elderly American widow, who looks healthy enough. We fear she is not so strong as she looks, and don't want her to be alone. But she will not take hints. I wish you to make friends with her, so that if she should become ill enough to need attention you may see that she gets proper care and induce her to cable to her only daughter." He stopped and looked at Miss Keogh inquiringly, as if to convince himself that Miss Keogh had understood.