don't intend ruining your life, I intend leaving you with half your uncle's fortune and the capacity for enjoying all that life can hold for a high-spirited young woman."
"I'll not do it, I'll not do it, I'll not do it," she muttered.
He rose from the chair and bent over her.
"My young friend, you are going to sleep," he said to himself, waited a little longer and left the room, closing the door behind him.
He descended to the hall and passed into the big dining-hall beneath the girl's bedroom. The room had two occupants, a stout, hairless man who had neither hair, eyebrows, nor vestige of beard, and a younger man.
"Hello, Bridgers," said van Heerden addressing the latter, "you've been talking."
"Well, who doesn't?" snarled the man.
He pulled the tortoiseshell box from his pocket, opened the lid and took a pinch from its contents, snuffling the powder luxuriously.
"That stuff will kill you one of these days," said van Heerden.
"It will make him better-tempered," growled the hairless man. "I don't mind people who take cocaine as long as they are taking it. It's between dopes that they get on my nerves."
"Dr. Milsom speaks like a Christian and an artist," said Bridgers, with sudden cheerfulness. "If I didn't dope, van Heerden, I should not be working in your beastly factory, but would probably be one of the leading analytical chemists in America. But I'll go back to do my chore," he said rising. "I suppose I get a little commission for restoring your palpitating bride? Milsom tells me that it is she. I thought it was the other dame—the Dutch girl. I guess I was a bit dopey."
Van Heerden frowned.
"You take too keen an interest in my affairs," he said.
"Aw! You're getting touchy. If I didn't get interested in something I'd go mad," chuckled Bridgers.
He had reached that stage of cocaine intoxication when the world was a very pleasant place indeed and full of subject for jocularity.
