Simon groaned.
"That old school friend — she does work long hours," he protested. "I should have thought you could have invented something better than that. However, I take it that Papa doesn't like Bill Fulton, and you do, so you meet him on the quiet. That's sensible enough. But what's your father got against him? He looked good enough to me. Does he wash, or something?"
"You don't have to insult my father when I'm listening," she said stiffly; and then, in another moment, the emotions inside overcame her loyalty. "I suppose it's because Bill isn't rich and hasn't got a title or anything… And then there's the Comte de Beaucroix "
Simon swerved the car dizzily under the arm of a policeman who was trying to hold them up.
"Who?" he demanded.
"The Comte de Beaucroix — he's staying with us just now. He had to go and see some lawyers this afternoon, but he'll be back for dinner; and if I'm not home and dressed when they ring the gong, Father 'll have a fit."
"Poor little rich girl," said the Saint sympathetically. "So you have to dash home to play hostess to another of your father's expensive phonies."
"Oh no; this one's perfectly genuine. He's quite nice, really, only he's so wet. But Father's been caught too often before. He got hold of this Count's passport and took it down to the French Consulate, and they said it was quite all right."
"The idea being," Simon commented shrewdly, "that Papa doesn't want any comebacks after he's made you the Comtesse de Beaucroix."
She didn't answer at once; and Simon himself was busy with the task of passing a truck on the wrong side, whizzing over a crossing while the lights changed from amber to red, and making a skidding turn under the nose of a taxi at the next red light. But there was some queer gift of humanity about him that had always had an uncanny knack of unlocking other people's conventional reserves; and besides, they had once danced together and talked much delightful nonsense while all the conventional inhabitants of London slept.