Wesley was now certain that he must not stick at promises. "Surely." "Then sit tight. I don't know as much about O'Malley as I pretended out there in the hall, but I do know about Miss Rose. I don't know whether O'Malley is goin' to double-cross you or not, but I do know that Miss Rose has given you the double-cross already." She had thought that passion played a large part in his relations with her mistress, and she had counted upon awakening his jealousy. What, however, had far exceeded his affection was a poor pride of possession, and when Violet's words, in addition to touching his ambition, struck at that pride, they aroused an anger that was far more dangerous than any sense of love betrayed. "What's that?" he demanded. Two red beacons flashed into his pale checks, and his heavy lids, shooting upward for a single instant, disclosed hard, gray eyes gone hot and malevolent. "Be careful. Speak low, I tell you," she cautioned; "and remember your promise." "I don't believe----" "Here's Cassie!" They waited while the black opened the champagne and filled the glasses. Violet brushed Dyker's hair over his eyes and laughed at the effect. Dyker caught the offending hand and kissed it by way of punishment. "Cassie," he banteringly asked, "why didn't you ever tell me there was such a nice little girl in this house? I had to get the news from a friend on the outside." He tossed the now grinning negress a dollar and, as soon as she had left them, dropped the farce as promptly as did Violet. "I say I can't believe you," he resumed, the two spots of anger still glowering in his cheeks. Violet knew that her whole hope rested upon her ability to force conviction. "You've got to believe me," she said. "I'll tell you all that you told Miss Rose till I had to run away, that evening." She did it, omitting scarcely a particular. "That's right, ain't it?" she concluded. "May be. But what does that prove? It only shows that you heard me." "It shows that I can hear Miss Rose when she talks to somebody else. And I did hear her." "Whom was she talking to?" "The man you asked her about. To Rafael Angelelli." "Well, but I told her to talk to him." "An' she did it. But the first time I heard her was just before you told her to." "That same night?" "He was in the kitchen with her when you came in. Why, he's here all the time! I don't care what she pretends to you, she's stuck on him, an' every girl in the house knows it." Rapidly, but as fully as she had sketched the dialogue between Rose and Dyker, she now described the first conversation that she had overheard between her mistress and the Italian. "I'd come down to graft a drink," she said, "an' I heard them from the stairs. That's how, after he'd left, I came to listen to you too."