The burning eyes of Berthe Louison were steadily fixed upon the relator's face, and she was coldly noncommittal when Hawke paused for breath and a mental recapitulation.
The Major now gazed upon her immovable visage.

There was neither joy nor sorrow, neither the flush of anger nor the trembling of rage, awakened by the businesslike presentment of the social facts.

"She is a human icicle," he mused.

"She has some deadly hold on him!" "Can you trust this Ram Lal Singh ?" the woman demanded in a business-like tone.

Alan Hawke nodded decisively.
"He knows Hugh Fraser Johnstone well ?" queried Berthe.
"They have been companions in the mixed line or Delhi since the mutiny," earnestly replied Hawke, slowly concluding: "And Ram Lal has been Johnstone's broker in selecting his almost unequaled Indian collection.
Ram is a thief, like all Hindus, but he is square to me.