"Won't you sit down? Have a whisky and soda?"
She nodded. "Thanks, I would like a drink."
While he mixed it she stared round the room. "I've not been here before. Rather a nice place. You have made a lot of money, haven't you?"
She spoke nervously, in short, sharp sentences. Despard realised something was wrong. He wondered what. He looked at her more critically as he handed her the tumbler. She was smartly dressed. Her face looked very white, her eyes large and brilliant. If anything, she was more beautiful than when he had last seen her. She had always attracted him. He remembered how once he had wanted to marry her.
And the thought crossed his mind that if Marjorie did not come Ruby Strode would not make a bad travelling companion for an enforced holiday.
"It's a long time since we've met," he said easily. "Though your friends have been busy on your behalf—or perhaps I should say on behalf of your quondam convict lover."
He saw her face grow scarlet for a moment, her eyes flash, then she veiled them, and, shrugging her shoulders, laughed easily.
"It's about my quondam lover, as you call him, that I've come to see you."
Despard yawned, and, taking a fresh cigar, lit it. "How disappointing! I thought you had come to see me for myself alone. You are just as beautiful as ever you were, Ruby."
She emptied the glass he had given her, then pulled her chair closer to his and looked at him eagerly.