Her eyes danced joyously.
"You shall tell me all about it over dinner," she declared. "I've got a peach of a black gown—you won't mind if I am twenty minutes?"
"I shall mind every moment that you are away," Crawshay replied, "but I can pass the time. I will telephone and have a cocktail."
She leaned towards him.
"I can guess whom you are going to telephone to."
"Perhaps—but not what I am going to say."
"You are going to telephone to that chap with the dark moustache—Brightman, isn't it? I can hear you on the wire. 'Say, boys,' you'll begin, 'I'm on to a good thing! Everything's looking lovely. I'm taking little Nora Sharey, of Fourteenth Street, out to dine—girl who came over to Europe after Jocelyn Thew, you know. Good business, eh?'"
Crawshay laughed tolerantly. The girl's humour pleased him.
"You are wrong," he declared. "If I told them that, they'd expect something from me which I know I shan't get. You are right about the person, though. I am going to telephone to Brightman."
"What are you going to say?" she challenged him.