She looked across at him and blew out a ring of smoke scientifically.
"You do, do you? What for? Are you going to take a theatre and engage me as leading lady?"
"Do I look like it?" he retorted with a smile.
"Well, not much," she said, surveying him critically. "People might take you for a good many things, Mr. Ambrose, but they wouldn't take you for a fool, or if they did they would be taken in."
"Thanks, Lottie," he said. "That is something like a compliment."
"No, I don't think you are such an idiot as to take a theater," she said, "but what do you want me to stay in London for?"
"To assist me in a little business I'm engaged in," he said.
She regarded him with sharp scrutiny as she leant back and smoked her cigarette.
"You seem rather shy in mentioning it and coming to the point," she said dryly; "is it anything very bad?"
He laughed.