"Those times, I imagine," de Grost answered grimly, "are rare. Besides, who is to tell the real thing from the false?"
"You do less than justice to your perceptions, my friend," Bernadine declared, smiling.
De Grost merely shrugged his shoulders. Bernadine persisted.
"Come," he continued, "since you doubt me, let me be the first to give you a proof that on this occasion, at any rate, I am candour itself. You had a purpose in lunching at the Savoy to-day. That purpose I have discovered by accident. We are both interested in those people."
The Baron de Grost shook his head slowly.
"Really——" he began.
"Let me finish," Bernadine insisted. "Perhaps when you have heard all that I have to say you may change your attitude. We are interested in the same people, but in different ways. If we both move from opposite directions our friend will vanish. He is clever enough at disappearing, as he has proved before. We do not want the same thing from him, I am convinced of that. Let us move together and make sure that he does not evade us."
"Is it an alliance which you are proposing?" de Grost asked, with a quiet smile.
"Why not?" Bernadine answered. "Enemies have united before to-day against a common foe."
De Grost looked across the palm court to where the two people who formed the subject of their discussion were sitting in a corner, both smoking, both sipping some red-coloured liqueur.