“Good!”
Van Bleit hesitated, looked at Lawless uncertainly, looked about him, changed colour; then looked at Lawless again.
“The company for me to-night will consist of one,” he jerked out in a burst of half-eager, half-reluctant confidence.
His listener smiled unsympathetically.
“The one and only She of the moment; eh?”
“Man, you wouldn’t say that if you could see her,” Van Bleit returned, his manner unusually earnest. “She is the most beautiful woman in the world.”
“That’s a tall order,” Lawless replied drily. “If my memory serve me, you have happened across perfection a few times in your career.”
“Never before,” Van Bleit asserted. “My God, Lawless—”
He broke off abruptly, and stared at the other curiously, his mouth agape.
“I had forgotten... it’s the same name,” he said. “Are you by any chance related to Mrs Lawless?—at present living at Rondebosch.”