Louis_. May I ask,
Zaidie, what you really propose to do?"
"_Do_ is not for us to say," said Miss Zaidie, looking straight up to
the glass roof of the deck-chamber. "You see, Mrs. Van, we're not free
agents. We are not even first-class passengers who have paid their fares
on a contract ticket which is supposed to get them there."
"If you'll pardon me saying so," said Lord Redgrave, stopping his walk
up and down the deck, "that is not quite the case. To put it in the most
brutally material form, it is quite true that I have kidnapped you two
ladies and taken you beyond the reach of earthly law. But there is
another law, one which would bind a gentleman even if he were beyond the
limits of the Solar System, and so if you wish to be landed either in
Washington or New York it shall be done. You shall be put down within a
carriage drive of your own residence, or of Mr. Russell Rennick's. I
will myself see you to his door, and there we may say goodbye, and I
will take my trip through the Solar System alone."
There was another pause after this, a pause pregnant with the fate of
two lives. They looked at each other--Mrs. Van Stuyler at Zaidie, Zaidie
at Lord Redgrave, and he at Mrs. Van Stuyler again. It was a kind of
three-cornered duel of eyes, and the eyes said a good deal more than
common human speech could have done.
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