to hurry things on, to sweep her off her feet. She
understood--ah, how she understood!--why he had not wished Adela to join
them in the restaurant! She remembered a hundred things about him now,
all mixed up together, in no coherent order, little things at which
she had wondered but which she wondered at no longer; his distaste
for Garstin's portraits because they were of people belonging to the
underworld, his understanding of them, his calm contemplation of the
victims of vice, his lack of all pity for them, his shrewd verdict on
the judge which had so delighted Garstin. And how he had waited for her,
how he had known how to wait! It was frightful--that deliberation of
his! Garstin had been right about him. Garstin's instinct for people had
not betrayed him. Although later Arabian's craft had puzzled even him
he had summed up Arabian at a first glance. Garstin was diabolically
clever. If only he were less hard, less brutally cynical, she might
perhaps go to him now. For he had in his peculiar way warned her against
Arabian. She flushed in the dark as she thought of Garstin's probable
comments on her situation if he knew of it! And yet Garstin had told her
that Arabian was in love with her. Was that possible? Her vanity faintly
stirred like something, albeit feebly, reviving. Arabian had marked her
down as a prey. She had no doubt about that. Her brain refused to doubt
it. But perhaps, mingled with his hideous cupidity of the accomplished
adventurer, the professional thief, there was something else, the lust,
or even the sensual love, of the primitive man. Perhaps--she realized
the possibility--he believed he had found in her the great opportunity
of his life, the unique chance of combining the satisfaction of his
predatory instincts with the satisfaction of his intimate personal
desires, those desire which he shared with the men who lived far from
the underworld.

If that were so--and suddenly she felt that it was so, that she had hit
upon the truth--then she was surely in great danger. For Arabian was not
the man to let an unique opportunity slip through his fingers without
putting up a tremendous fight.

She must find someone to help her against this man. Again she thought
of Garstin. But he had his own battle to fight, the battle about the
portrait. Then she thought of Craven. Obscurely long ago--it seemed at
least long ago--she had felt that she might some day need Craven in
her life. How strange that was! What m