“I loathe being obvious,” said Hugh, “but I am not surprised.”
“But it isn’t that that matters,” she went on. “I wouldn’t marry him even to save my life.” She looked at Drummond quietly. “Henry Lakington is the second most dangerous man in England.”
“Only the second,” murmured Hugh. “Then hadn’t I better start my new career with the first?”
She looked at him in silence. “I suppose you think that I’m hysterical,” she remarked after a while. “You’re probably even wondering whether I’m all there.”
Drummond flicked the ash from his cigarette, then he turned to her dispassionately. “You must admit,” he remarked, “that up to now our conversation has hardly proceeded along conventional lines. I am a complete stranger to you; another man who is a complete stranger to me speaks to you while we’re at tea. You inform me that I shall probably have to kill him in the near future. The statement is, I think you will agree, a trifle disconcerting.”
The girl threw back her head and laughed merrily. “You poor young man,” she cried; “put that way it does sound alarming.” Then she grew serious again. “There’s plenty of time for you to back out now if you like. Just call the waiter, and ask for my bill. We’ll say good-bye, and the incident will finish.”
She was looking at him gravely as she spoke, and it seemed to her companion that there was an appeal in the big blue eyes. And they were very big: and the face they were set in was very charming—especially at the angle it was tilted at, in the half-light of the room. Altogether, Drummond reflected, a most adorable girl. And adorable girls had always been a hobby of his. Probably Lakington possessed a letter of hers or something, and she wanted him to get it back. Of course he would, even if he had to thrash the swine to within an inch of his life.
“Well!” The girl’s voice cut into his train of thought and he hurriedly pulled himself together.
“The last thing I want is for the incident to finish,” he said fervently. “Why—it’s only just begun.”
“Then you’ll help me?”