He got up and stood looking down at her. Then he spoke, in a low, distinct voice:
"You could, perhaps, love a thief, Mademoiselle, but not a murderer."
He wheeled sharply away on that and left her sitting there.
He heard the little gasp she gave and paid no attention. He had said what he meant to say. He left her there to digest that last unmistakable phrase.
Derek Kettering, coming out of the Casino into the sunshine, saw her sitting alone on the bench and joined her.
"I have been gambling," he said, with a light laugh, "gambling unsuccessfully. I have lost everything—everything, that is, that I have with me."
Katherine looked at him with a troubled face. She was aware at once of something new in his manner, some hidden excitement that betrayed itself in a hundred different infinitesimal signs.
"I should think you were always a gambler. The spirit of gambling appeals to you."
"Every day and in every way a gambler? You are about right. Don't you find something stimulating in it? To risk all on one throw—there is nothing like it."
Calm and stolid as she believed herself to be, Katherine felt a faint answering thrill.