"It is Miss Mayo, isn't it? That's the name the elevator boy gave me, yesterday."
"It will do." She spoke absently, already on the trail of another thought. Suddenly she caught it.
"Then you brought the basket, or sent it?" she cried. "It was _you!_ How dared you!"
She had half risen from her chair. Bending across the table, he gently pushed her back into it.
She hesitated, and he repeated the command, this time almost curtly. Under the new tone she obeyed.
"I'm going to tell you something," he went on. "I've exhausted my slender resources of experience and tact. I don't know what any one else would do in this situation; but I do know what I'm going to do myself. And, what is a lot more important, I know what you're going to do."
"That's easy," she said. "I'm going to finish the act you interrupted."
"Very easily. I can take you from this restaurant to the nearest police station, and have you locked up for attempted suicide. You know, it's a crime here."
The word they had both avoided was out at last. Although he had spoken it very softly, its echoes seemed to fill the big room. She shrank back and stared at him, her hands clutching the sides of her chair.
"Wouldn't I? I'll do it in exactly fifteen minutes, unless you give me your word that you will never make another attempt of the kind." He took his watch out of his pocket and laid it on the table between them. "It's exactly quarter-past twelve," he said. "At half-past--"
There was horror in the brown eyes now and an antagonism that hurt him.
"Would it be kinder to let you go back to that studio and--"
"How dare you interfere in my affairs! Who gave you the right?"
"Fate gave me the right. I'm its chosen specialist on the job, and you may take my word for it, my dear girl, the job's going to be done, and done up brown."
"It will be mighty unpleasant for you," he went on, thoughtfully. "There's the publicity, you know. Of course, all the newspapers will have your pictures--"
"But of course you can avoid all that," he reminded her, "by giving me your promise."
She choked back her rising fury, and made an obvious effort at self-control.
"If I agree to these terms of yours," she asked, between her teeth, "may I be sure that you will leave me in peace and that I shall not see you again?"