Addison, I think you said your name was?--her eyes
lighted up in the dark like a cat's!"
He stared at me with some return of his old truculence as if
anticipating ridicule and prepared to resent it, but I nodded sternly,
watching him as if enthralled by his narrative, whereupon:
"Yes--like a cat's!" he repeated; "and I'll admit I got in a panic. I
don't know if she thought from the way I yelled that I was going to
attack her or what, but the next thing I knew she was at my throat."
He uttered a sort of choking sound, tenderly touched the bandages
about his neck and fingered the plaster which ornamented his face.
"At your throat?" said I. "You mean she tried to throttle you?"
"Throttle me!" he exclaimed scornfully. "She seized me with her
_teeth_!"
"But," I said, and hesitated, for I feared I might wound his curious
susceptibility--"the damage to your face?"
"Damn her!" he cried. "Damn her! I had never seen her without her
gloves, you understand, but she must have taken them off that night;
for _this_"--he indicated his plastered countenance--"is what she did
with her nails!"
He paused, staring at me dully, and then with a hint of the old
ridiculous vanity entering his voice:
"But I scored after all," he said, tossing the little amulet into the
drawer from which he had taken it. "If that's worth L50 it will more
than pay the doctor's bill, I think!"
Following a brief interval:
"Of course," I said, "you would recognize the woman again?"
"I am not so certain," declared the scarred man.
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