"Why aren't you staying in the hotel, darling Brute?'" she whispered to him as they left the restaurant. "If you had been—"
"I am," said Verisschenzko, and leaving her for a moment he went and telephoned to his not unintelligent Russian servant at the Ritz to arrange about the transference of his rooms.
"She requires the most careful watching—I must waste no time."
And then he returned to the party in the hall.
CHAPTER X
Denzil Ardayre took up his letters which had been forwarded to him from the dépót where he was stationed. He and Verisschenzko were passing through the hall of his mother's house, for a talk and a smoke in his sitting-room, after leaving the Carlton.
The house was in St. James' Place, a small, old building, the ground floor of which was given over to Denzil whenever he was in London. His mother was absent at Bath, where she spent a long autumn cure.
John's letter lay on the top, and Verisschenzko caught the look of interest which came into Denzil's face.
"Don't mind me, my dear chap," he remarked, "read your letters." And they went on into the sitting-room.
"I want just to look at this one—it is from John Ardayre whom we met to-night," and Denzil opened it casually—"I wonder what he is writing to me about, he did not say anything at dinner."