"I should think it wouldn't. It is just like you to think of it. Indeed I will accept it." And he remembered how many cases he had forgotten under her kindly tact, both in this cool green studio and that other room of woodland shades in the cottage. He was wondering if he had not been a conceited ass and misconstrued an increasing warmth of friendship in this fine impulsive creature, when he remembered Miss Austin's insinuations and sat down abruptly, recalled to the object of his visit.
Alys had invited him to smoke but had not produced her box of Russian cigarettes. Miss Austin, who was determined to keep her nerves in order and her efficiency at high-water mark, did not smoke, and Rush had his prejudices. While he puffed away at his cigar and stretched his long legs out to the fire, she leaned back against a mass of pillows on the divan and congratulated herself that she had put on a charming primrose-yellow gown in honour of her Aunt Dissosway and two other guests entertained by her mother at supper. It was rhythmical in its harmony with the olives of the room and of her own rare colouring.
Rush, who had been studying his picture, looked up and smiled at the other picture on the divan. In the soft lamplight Alys' smooth dark hair looked as olive as her eyes, and there was a faint stain of pink on the ivory of her cheeks. Beneath the lace that covered her slender bust was a delicate note of ribbons and fine lawn, and the little feet in pointed bronze slippers showed through transparent stockings. More by instinct than calculated effect Alys on such occasions managed to create an aura of fastidious and dainty femininity while stopping short of invitation.
Rush scowled as his mind leaped to the substantial and sensibly clad feet of his beautiful client, and to a pile of stout unribboned underwear that had been brought into the jail sitting-room one day when he awaited her tardy appearance. For the first time he wondered if such things really counted in human happiness—not so much, perhaps, for the artistic delight in them that a plain man like himself might be able to feel as for all that they stood: the elusive but auspicious signal.
He shook himself angrily and sat up.
"Your young friend thinks I murdered Balfame," he announced.
Alys started under this frontal attack, but smiled ironically. "I knew she had conceived some such nonsensical theory, mainly because she wanted to have it so. Sarah intends to be a novelist."
"So she did me the honour to confide. She even promised me all the immunity that lay within her jurisdiction if I would reward her with a full confession."
"Really, she is too absurd. Don't let it worry you. You have nothing to fear."
"I'm not so sure."