“I have not enough to do,” she said. “I do not understand why you refuse so many cases.”
Peter Ruff nodded.
“I did not bring my talents into this business,” he said, “to watch flirting wives, to ascertain the haunts of gay husbands, or to detect the pilferings of servants.”
“Anything is better than sitting still,” she protested.
“I do not agree with you,” Peter Ruff said. “I like sitting still very much indeed—one has time to think. Is there anything else?”
“Shall I really go on?” she asked.
“By all means,” he answered.
“I have idea,” she continued, “that you are subordinating your general interests to your secret enmity—to one man. You are waiting until you can find another case in which you are pitted against him.”
“Sometimes,” Peter Ruff said, “your intelligence surprises me!”
“I came to you,” she continued, looking at him earnestly, “for two reasons. The personal one I will not touch upon. The other was my love of excitement. I have tried many things in life, as you know, Peter, but I have seemed to carry always with me the heritage of weariness. I thought that my position here would help me to fight against it.”