Simon’s teeth flashed. He knew that she was taking stock of his tanned keen-lined face, the set of his wide shoulders and the length of lean muscular limbs. He knew that he was interesting to look at — conquering a natural bashfulness that he always kept well under control, he admitted the fact frankly.
“Not at all,” he said.
She opened her bag and held something out to him. He took it and unfolded it — it was a ten-thousand-franc note. He folded it again carefully, and handed it back with a smile.
“I’m afraid you’re mistaken,” he said pleasantly. “You don’t owe me anything. Good night.”
3
There began for Mrs Porphyria Nussberg an interlude of peace that must have been strange to her. The glances that she encountered veiled their derision with perplexed uncertainty; the giggles when she unharnessed herself of her corsets before going in to bathe were more subdued. The impulse to weep with helpless mirth whenever she appeared was still there, human nature being what it was, but the story of the Casino episode had flown around the town and cast a damp sheet over the pristine hilarity of the jest. There was the sight of Maurice Walmar’s bruised and swollen mouth for reinforcement, and the other aspiring wits looked at it and at the Saint’s leathery torso, and merged themselves thoughtfully into the background. Even the waiters, who had been encouraged to curry favor with the sportive element by smirking and winking at the audience whenever they were called upon to serve the woman, relapsed into the supercilious impersonality with which waiters in fashionable resorts cloak their yearning for tumbrils and guillotines.
Myra Campion cornered the Saint the very next afternoon. He was paddling contentedly along in the general direction of Gibraltar, feeling himself safely insulated from the seethe of popular speculation by the half-mile of limpid water that separated him from the shore, when his head encountered a firm but yielding obstruction. He rolled over and looked into the wet face of Miss Campion.
“You’ll have to swim farther out than this if you want to dodge me,” she said.
Destiny having overtaken him, Simon reflected philosophically that it could have chosen many less agreeable vehicles.
“Darling,” he said blandly, “I’ve been searching the whole ocean for you.”