'There are a lot of these notes,' he said. 'Are cheques out of fashion, Miss Ryle?'
'You're so suspicious,' she retorted. Apart from difficulties about a banking account, she would not have missed handling the notes for worlds.
He counted them carefully. 'Correct!' he pronounced.
'And here's your letter!' she cried, producing it from her pocket; the action was a veritable coup de théâtre.
'Oh, I remember my letter,' he said with a smile—and a brow knit in vexation. Then he looked across the table at her. 'I'd have betted ten to one against it,' he remarked.
'You underrate the odds,' Peggy told him in a triumph that really invited Nemesis. 'I'd have betted a thousand to one when I left your house.'
'You're a wonderful girl,' said Fricker. 'How the devil did you do it?'
She grew sober for a moment. 'I'm ashamed of how I did it.' Then she burst out again victoriously: 'But I'd do it again, Mr. Fricker!'
'You have all the elements of greatness,' said he, with a gravity that was affected and yet did not seem entirely pretence. 'You've got three thousand five hundred pounds out of somebody——'
'I've got four thousand,' interrupted Peggy.