"I'm telling you the three of us talked all that business over, I and you and Liane, half a dozen times if once, last Winter. You didn't make any bones then about admitting you'd turned that trick at Folly's while you were lit. What good do you think it's going to do you to stall about it now, try to feed the bull to me, the way you did to Liane on board that boat? Maybe she swallowed your yarn because she wanted to; but I'm no crazy woman, I'm not so dead struck on you I'll let you get away with telling me to my face you don't remember anything that went on in this Town before you went South. I'm wise, I know what you've got in mind; and that tale won't go down a little bit with yours truly."
"I see . . ."
"Well," Morphew roughly insisted: "what do you see?"
"For one thing, that one was not mistaken in assuming you had recently talked with Mademoiselle Delorme."
"Why not? She hiked right back to Town as soon as you left her flat on the Port Royal."
"And promptly reported to you of course."
"Who do you think? What other friend did her and you have, with pull enough to keep the cops off your backs while you were running that continuous performance of yours last Winter?"
"Nevertheless, your influence failed to save Liane from deportation."
"She came back all right, she's here now, isn't she? Well then: who do you suppose fixed things up for her?"
"Pardon, monsieur: I do but marvel that power so autocratic should even once have failed a friend."