"Had you?"
"Well, I did go." He had slurred the first statement; this one was characteristically deliberate. "I did go, and before I went I asked Cazalet for an introduction to some friends of his down in Rome."
"I didn't know he had any," said Blanche. She was not listening so very well; she was, in fact, instinctively prepared to challenge every statement, on Cazalet's behalf; and here her instinct defeated itself.
"No more he has," said Toye, "but he claimed to have some. He left the Kaiser Fritz the other day at Naples—just when I came aboard. I guess he told you?"
"No. I understood he came round to Southampton. Surely you shared a cabin?"
"Only from Genoa; that's where Cazalet rejoined the steamer."
"Well?"
"He claimed to have spent the interval mostly with friends in Rome. Those friends don't exist, Miss Blanche," said Toye.
"Is that any business of mine?" she asked him squarely.