But the name left me cold and stolid. I had heard it, but that was
all. It was lamentable ignorance, I am aware, but I had specialized in
Letters at the expense of Art.

"You must know her pictures," said Raffles, patiently; "but I suppose
you thought she was a man. They would appeal to you, Bunny; that
festive piece over the sideboard was her work. Sometimes they risk her
at the Academy, sometimes they fight shy. She has one of those studios
in the same square; they used to live up near Lord's."

My mind was busy brightening a dim memory of nymphs reflected in woody
pools. "Of course!" I exclaimed, and added something about "a clever
woman." Raffles rose at the phrase.

"A clever woman!" he echoed, scornfully; "if she were only that I
should feel safe as houses. Clever women can't forget their
cleverness, they carry it as badly as a boy does his wine, and are
about as dangerous. I don't call Jacques Saillard clever outside her
art, but neither do I call her a woman at all. She does man's work
over a man's name, has the will of any ten men I ever knew, and I don't
mind telling you that I fear her more than any person on God's earth.
I broke with her once," said Raffles, grimly, "but I know her. If I
had been asked to name the one person in London by whom I was keenest
NOT to be bowled out, I should have named Jacques Saillard."

That he had never before named her to me was as characteristic as the
reticence with which Raffles spoke of their past relations, and even
of their conversation in the back drawing-room that evening.

It was a question of principle with him, and one that I like to
remember. "Never give a woman away, Bunny," he used to say; and he
said it again to-night, but with a heavy cloud upon him, as though his
chivalry was sorely tried.

"That's all right," said I, "if you're not going to be given away
yourself."

"That's just it, Bunny! That's just--"

The words were out of him, it was too late to recall them. I had hit
the nail upon the head.

"So she threatened you," I said, "did she?"

"I didn't say so," he replied, coldly.

"And she is mated with a clown!" I pursued.

"How she ever married him," he admitted, "is a mystery to me."

"It always is," said I, the wise man for once, and rather enjoying the
role.

"Southern blood?"

"Spanish."

"She'll be pestering you to run off with her, old chap," said I.

Raffles was pacing the room. He stopped in his stride for hal