He lit a cigarette, stretched himself at ease in a big chair opposite her. "You have had bad news—very bad news."
"I feel as if I had been ill—on the operating table—and the cocaine were wearing off."
"Armstrong?"
Her answer was the silence of assent.
"When you told Molly not to let anyone in, yesterday, you excepted him?"
"Yes."
"I thought it over afterwards and decided that must be so." Several reflective puffs at the cigarette. Then, not interrogating, but positively, "You care for him."
"Do I?" she said, as if the matter were doubtful and in any event not interesting.
Boris drew a long breath. "That's why I've been unable to make a beginning with you. I ought to have seen it long ago, but I didn't—not until yesterday—not until I had solved the riddle of his being able to get in."
"That's rather a strong conclusion from such a trifling incident."