That's why I'm here. To see Stannard."
He ran up the four steps and faced her. Round and above him stretched that white, and still cold, face of Fleet House. Four smallish Corinthian pillars were set flush into the facade, two on each side of the broad front door. Except for a small close-in balcony on each of the windows above, these were the only ornamentation. Eight windows on the ground floor, eight windows on the floor above, eight smaller windows on a smaller floor above.
Very high ceilings in the rooms, too. High, breathing cold like a prison! This Martin noted somewhere at the back of his mind as he ran up the steps.
"Jenny…" he began.
Ruth laughed. "Jenny thinks I've been your mistress for years and years. Isn't it exquisitely silly?" '
"Not if she thinks so. Look here: if you knew who 'Jenny’ was for all this time, why didn't you tell me?"
"Perhaps I had my reasons." A pause. "Perhaps I still have them." Another pause. "Perhaps I’ll tell you tonight"
"Oh, no, you won't I—"
"Aren't you forgetting something?" Ruth asked sharply. "Forgetting what?"
That I was the one who arranged for us to stay here? That I was the one who deliberately arranged to throw you and Jenny together?"