"But suppose it wasn't for a joke at all?"
I spoke as one playfully plumbing the abysmally absurd; what I did desire to sound was the loyalty of this new, unexpected, and still captious ally. And I thought myself strangely successful at the first cast; for Miss Belsize looked me in the face as I was looking her, and I trusted her before she spoke.
"Well, after yesterday," she said, "I should warn him all the same!"
"You would back your Raffles right or wrong?" I murmured, perceiving that Camilla Belsize was, after all, like all the rest of us.
"Against a vulgar extortioner, most decidedly!" she returned, without repudiating the possessive pronoun. "It doesn't follow that I think anything of him—apart from what you did between you for Teddy yesterday."
We had continued our stroll some time ago, and now it was I who stood still. I looked at my watch. It still wanted some minutes to the luncheon interval.
"If Raffles took a cab to his rooms," I said, "he must be nearly there and I must telephone to him."
"Is there a call-office on the ground?"
"Only in the pavilion, I believe, for the use of the members."
"Then you must go to the nearest one outside."