"I'm for Ostend."
The Saint sighed.
"Couldn't you change your mind and come to Paris?"
He had taken one puff from the cigarette. Now he took a second, while she eyed him impudently. The smoke had an unfamiliar, slightly bitter taste to it. Simon drew on the cigarette again thoughtfully, but this time he held the smoke in his mouth and let it trickle out again presently, as if he had inhaled. The expression on his face never altered, although the last thing he had expected had been trouble of that sort.
"Do you think we could take a walk outside?" said the girl. "I'm simply stifling."
"I think it might be a good idea," said the Saint.
He walked out with her into the clear morning sunshine, and they strolled idly along the gravel drive. The rate of exchange had done a great deal to discourage foreign travel that year, and the airport was unusually deserted. A couple of men were climbing out of a car that had drawn up beside the building; but apart from them there was only one other car turning in at the gates leading from the main road, and a couple of mechanics fussing round a gigantic Handley-Page that was ticking over on the tarmac.
"Why did you give me a doped cigarette?" asked the Saint with perfect casualness, but as the girl turned and stared at him his eyes leapt to hers with the cold suddenness of bared steel.
"I–I don't understand. Do you mind telling me what you mean?"
Simon dropped the cigarette and trod on it deliberately.