The Duke chewed his moustache meditatively. "An' you saw Demetrius?"
"Ugh!" Leah covered her face and rocked. "To live with that in my thoughts, and to think that I kissed It."
"Why did you?" demanded Jim, furiously.
"To get the cypher letters connected with the insurance plot," she replied, looking up; then detailed with necessary suppressions the greater and least repulsive part of her nauseous visit to the tramp steamer. The story sounded by no means pretty, and all her courage was necessary to enable her to arrive at finis.
When she did the Duke sprang up in a pelting rage. "My wife to be treated like that!"
"Oh, the treatment was not so bad," lied the Duchess, easily. "Of course, my mouth was sore with the fall on the stairs, but I managed to touch the lips of that--that---- Ugh! ugh!"
"I'll go to Southend to-morrow," announced the Duke, frowning. "I can't thrash Demetrius, poor devil, but I'll hammer the life out of that second-hand skipper."
"You won't find the boat there, Jim. I made inquiries, and learnt that it left, as Demetrius said it would, shortly after my visit. And we are quite safe. That kiss----"
"Leave the kissin' alone," cried Jim, turning on her fiercely. "Of course, I see you couldn't quite help it; but----"
"No 'but' at all," contradicted Leah, sharply. "If I hadn't bought back those cypher letters in that way the whole story might have come out. And then, Jim--well, you know."