'Yes. Don't be long! I'll cough when I'm ready.'
The operation succeeded, and the more easily as Mrs. Rushmore went quietly on without turning her head, being absorbed and charmed by Kralinsky's conversation.
'You may as well read the newspaper cutting now,' Margaret said when they had begun to walk again. 'That cannot attract attention, even if she does look round, and it explains a good many things. It's in the thinner envelope, of course.'
Van Torp fumbled in the pocket of his jacket, and brought out the slip of newspaper without the envelope, a precaution which Margaret noticed and approved. [{226}] If she had been able to forget for a moment her anger against Logotheti she would have been amazed at the strides her intimacy with Van Torp was making. He himself was astounded, and did not yet understand, but he had played the great game for fortune against adversaries of vast strength and skill, and had won by his qualities rather than his luck, and they did not desert him at the most important crisis of his life. The main difference between his present state of mind and his mental view, when he had been fighting men for money, was that he now felt scruples wholly new to him. Things that had looked square enough when millions were at stake appeared to him 'low down' where Margaret was the prize.
She watched him intently while he read the printed report, but his face did not change in the least. At that short distance she could see every shade of his expression through the white veiling, though he could not see hers at all. He finished reading, folded the slip carefully, and put it into his pocket-book instead of returning it to the envelope.
"She watched him intently while he read the printed report."
'It does look queer,' he said slowly. 'Now let me ask you one thing, but don't answer me unless you like. It's not mere inquisitiveness on my part.' As Margaret said nothing, though he waited a moment for her answer, he went on. 'That ruby, now—I suppose it's to be cut for you, isn't it?'
'Yes. He gave it to me in Versailles, and I kept it some days. Then he asked me to let him have it to take to London when I came here.' [{227}]