"No. I just want you on hand to give me any information you can on a person who will probably be there to investigate what happened to the countess."
"I'll be there," and he was.
It was a gay and colorful throng, but neither of the two Lensmen was in any mood for gaiety. They acted, of course. They neither sought nor avoided each other but, somehow, they were never alone together.
"Man or woman?" asked Gerrond.
"I don't know. All I've got is the recognition."
The Radeligian did not ask what that recognition was to be. He knew that that information might prove dangerous indeed to any unauthorized possessor. He did not want to know it; he was glad that the Tellurian had not thrust it upon him.
Suddenly the Vice-Admiral's attention was wrenched toward the doorway, to see the most marvelously, the most flawlessly beautiful woman he had ever seen. But not long did he contemplate that beauty, for the Tellurian Lensman's thoughts were fairly seething, despite his iron control.
"Do you mean ... you can't mean—" Gerrond faltered.
"Yes—definitely!" Kinnison rasped. "She looks like an angel, but take it from me, she isn't. She's one of the slimiest snakes that ever lived—she's so low that she could put on a tall silk hat and walk under a duck. I know she's beautiful. She's a riot, a seven-sector callout, a thionite dream. So what? She is also Dessa Desplaines, formerly of Aldebaran II. Does that mean anything to you?"