CHAPTER XXVII.
RUBY'S HEROISM.
Despard knew exactly what Ruby Strode had come to ask. He saw his opportunity "for getting a little of his own back," as he would have put it. He smiled to himself as he watched her sitting there, nervously twisting up the gloves she had taken off, and, obviously, at a loss to continue.
A more generous man would have tried to make it easier for her, to have helped her. But Despard was not that sort. He merely calculated how much he might ask, how far he might go without meeting a rebuff. The cards all seemed to be in his hand.
Here he was in his own flat, alone, with a beautiful woman who had come to ask, to beg, or to purchase a favour of him! He glanced at the clock; it was now past ten o'clock. In a few minutes the outer door would be locked and the hall-porter gone! He rose, and, crossing over to the table, poured himself out a stiff whisky. As he placed his glass under the syphon he broke the long silence.
"Won't you have another, Ruby?" he asked in a soft voice.
Ruby started, and the blood rushed to her face. Her courage oozed away. Then she thought of her mission—she must not fail. She must keep cool and play this man with his own game. She must fool him, deceive him—appear to give in to him; permit him to make love to her, anything, everything so long as she could persuade him to come forward with the evidence that would save her lover from the crime that now dishonoured his good name; that had ruined his life and threatened to ruin his sister's.
"Thank you, I will have a tiny drop, please, with plenty of soda."
Despard turned his back on her and half filled her tumbler with spirit, he then frothed it over the brim with soda.
"Now then, go ahead," he laughed.