"No," she answered. "Not since last Friday. He has sailed, I believe, to offer his services to the Mexican revolutionists."
"Ah!" he leaned back and gazed pensively over his interlocked fingers. His eyes rested on a bronze in the opposite corner.
"You've never thanked me for that," he said casually.
Nina followed his gaze. "Thanked you?" she asked.
"Who else?"
"For the cobra?" For it was the cobra with the history that he continued to regard.
"For the cobra."
"You mean you were the one that sent it to me? There was no card with it—no name."
"I picked it up in Calcutta and fancied it might please you. Eve and the serpent, you know. Rather delicately significant—What?"
She was staring at him, astounded. After all these five years he had unsealed his lips. She noticed his scarred left hand, recalled the part that the bronze had played in that, too—and wondered the more.