"I mean that everything you have said fills me with horror!" she cried, with a need of self-expostulation. "I wouldn't be you for all the millions in the world! Thank God, I can be a fool! I can love like a human being! I'd rather give up everything in the world to the man I adore--" With an exclamation, he sprang toward her, rage and lust in his eyes; but, prepared, she flung a chair against his legs and escaped into the drawing-room, slamming the door in his face, and darting from the vestibule into the hall as he came blindly in pursuit. She did not stop until she had descended the flight of stairs. Below, she turned, and perceived his passion distorted face glowering down from the upper landing. "Will you kindly bring my things down, Mr. Sassoon? I'm going now," she said, breathless, but exhilarated by the escape and the victory. "Come and get them!" he said furiously, and he disappeared. She frowned, not relishing the turn, calculating how to extricate herself. At length, reluctantly, she descended the second flight, resolved to send a boy up-stairs for her things. The vestibule in which she found herself was a large one with glass doors opening into the noisy restaurant, played over by an energetic Hungarian orchestra. As she hesitated, conscious of the strange figure she presented, the glass doors swung hastily and Harrigan Blood came out. "Dodo! I thought I recognized you!" he cried, stopping short. "What in the name of the incredible--" She went to him quickly, grasping his arm, actuated by a sudden brilliant plan of revenge. "Mr. Blood--Harrigan!" she said quickly. "I was brought here by a gentleman who had told me it was to be a party of eight or ten. I have just escaped from the trap he laid for me! Will you give me your arm while I go and reclaim my things?" "Will I? I'll throttle him!" he said angrily. "The contemptible cur! Who is he?" "Sassoon!" "My God!" They went up-stairs, and pushed aside the half-open doors. At her entrance, Sassoon turned like a startled animal, his face almost unrecognizable with rage. In his fury he had caught his napkin and torn it into shreds. A couple of chairs were overturned, and the covering of the table pulled down. At the sight of Harrigan Blood striding in with menacing looks, Sassoon checked his first impetuous advance, halting abruptly, murder in his heart. "I have come for my things, Mr. Sassoon, since you would not bring them to me," Doré said, "and I found a _gentleman_ to accompany me." "Is it true, what Miss Baxter says?" said Harrigan Blood, clearing the space that separated them. "Did you bring her here with a lie--to a trap?" "Mind your own business!" cried Sassoon, with a scream of rage. "Who are you to preach morality to me? You're a fine one to reproach any one, you are!" "I've done a lot of things in my life," said Blood, with rising wrath, "but I never took a woman with a lie--like a thief! Sassoon, you're a coward and a dirty cur!"