“I am a witness,” Fanny interjected, interrupting him again. But the interruption was effected without abruptness, without apparent emotion, sweetly, almost lispingly, with a modulation of the voice that was restful to the ear. “And,” she added, in the same sugary, leisurely way, but raising now a slender finger gloved in white, “I will swear to what you said.”
At this Orr swam, or tried to swim, to the rescue. “Surely,” he protested, “you would not do that?”
“Wouldn’t I?” she answered, addressing Orr and speaking in the same smiling, seductive fashion that she had to Annandale. “Wouldn’t I, indeed! Really, believe me, you are quite in error.”
Annandale fell back in the chair from which he had arisen. “Fanny,” he gasped, “I did not know a woman could hate like that.”
Fanny smiled afresh. “No? Is it possible? But, then, perhaps, you never knew how a woman could love.”
She gave a little nod. It was as though she were adding, “Take that.”
Orr was buttoning a glove, preparing to retreat. She turned to him: “Don’t go. Stay and have a drink with Arthur. He looks as though he needed one.”
She moved back.
“Yes, stay,” she continued. “I am going.” Once more the slender finger gloved in white was raised. “Arthur Annandale, never willingly will I see you again—except in court. For to court I shall go, if only to see you sentenced.”
At that, at the splendid ferocity of it, Orr looked at Annandale. When he turned to look at Fanny, silently, no doubt smilingly, she had gone.