When London Sleeps — page 139: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

134 TWO WOMEN AND A MAN. ture covered with velvet and brocade of vivid hues. The second floor was the place where most of the business went on. It consisted of a large reception room out of which opened a half-dozen or so smaller rooins, devoted to gambling and wine parties. In this glittering reception room we shall find one evening the virtual, though not ostensible, proprie- tor of the place, Captain Rodney Haynes. The captain was alone in the reception room, but from behind two or three of the closed doors caine occasional bursts of hysterical laughter, although it was still early in the evening. | Haynes was it high good humor to-night. He had just heard from a man he had posted in front of the Burlington Hotel that the bait had taken and his cousin had driven off in the cab evidently en route for the Helliwell Mansion. Once inside, those inno- cent eyes of hers would open with surprise and fear, and then he would know how to tame her. To cage the bird was the chief thing. | ‘Well, has she arrived yet?’’ asked a cold, though musical voice. He turned to see standing behind him the woman he had installed as mistress of the place. Hilda Corrode was superbly dressed in yellow satin and black lace, and looked very handsome in spite of the weary, discontented expression her features wore. She had obeyed Haynes’ instructions, and was ready to obey thein still further, but there were mo- ments when she hated herself for doing so. Then, . | comicbooks co