“In a moment, dear people,” she said.
Then she leaned back among the cushions and laughed at her companion.
“Tell me, Mr. Tavernake,” she asked, “don't you feel that you have stepped into a sort of modern Arabian Nights?”
“Why?”
“Oh, I know Mr. Pritchard's weakness,” she continued. “He loves to throw a glamour around everything he says or does. Because he honors me by interesting himself in my concerns, he has probably told you all sorts of wonderful things about me and my friends. A very ingenious romancer, Mr. Pritchard, you know. Confess, now, didn't he tell you some stories about us?”
She might have spared herself the trouble of beating about the bush. There was no hesitation about Tavernake.
“He said that your friends were every one of them criminals,” Tavernake declared, “and he admitted that he was working hard at the present moment to discover that you were one, too.”
She laughed softly but heartily.
“I wonder what was his object,” she remarked, “in taking you into his confidence.”
“He happened to know,” Tavernake explained, “that I was intimate with your sister. He wanted me to ask Beatrice a certain question.”