"Really? Awfully nice for you."
Ermengarde was stunned. Here was the woman of mystery introducing and explaining her to this disreputable young villain, whom she had scarcely acknowledged before, and appearing to welcome her intrusion on a too intimate tête-à-tête with her "connexion by marriage," as an excuse for ending it.
"I hope you found your invalid aunt better, Miss Somers," she murmured, with civil interest, when she recovered breath after Cyrano had been summarily dismissed.
"My aunt!" she echoed, puzzled.
"Or connexion—by marriage. You were to lunch with her in Mentone, you remember."
"Oh, of course! I had forgotten. She—she was engaged; she only sees one person at a time. So I came on here."
A flush came and quickly passed from the woman of mystery's statuesque features. Ermengarde marvelled at the readiness of her inventive powers, and reflected that a connexion by marriage sometimes means a good deal.
"Your connexion," she said, "has not had the best luck this afternoon, did he tell you? It was he I overheard on that first evening at Les Oliviers talking to the thing with the black-leaded eyes. She was in the Casino with him to-day. He asked me to play for him, seeing I was new and lucky."
"Yes? And you gave him luck?"
"Only for that once. And the creature with the orange-coloured hair clawed it."