"I saw what happened — let me get you a taxi."
He stood up and came around the table while she started to protest. He led her up the stairs and through the lobby into the street.
"Really — it's awfully nice of you to bother-"
"To tell you the truth," murmured the Saint, "I have met people with a better taste in barons."
The commissionaire hailed a taxi at the Saint's nod, and the girl gave an address in St. John's Wood. Simon allowed her to thank him again, and coolly followed her in before the commissionaire closed the door. The taxi pulled out from the kerb before she could speak.
"Don't worry," said the Saint. "I was just feeling like a breath of fresh air, and my intentions are fairly honourable. I should probably have been obliged to smite your Baron on the nose if you hadn't left him when you did. Here — have a cigarette. It'll make you feel better."
The girl took a smoke from his case. They were held up a few yards farther on, in Piccadilly; and suddenly the door of the taxi was flung open and a breathless man in a double-breasted dinner-jacket appeared in the aperture.
"Pardon, madame — I did not sink I should catch you. It is yours, isn't it?"
He held up a small drop ear-ring; and as he turned his head Simon recognized him as a solitary diner from a table adjoining his own.
"Oh!" The girl sat up, biting her lip. "Thank you — thank you so much —"