“Precisely all right,” replied the American. “The Credit Lyonnais, with amazing stupidity, sent you precisely what you asked for in your telegram.” And he showed her the twenty-dollar gold piece.
“Well, well, the stupid darlings!” Then she laughed in her big, energetic manner. “I'm not always a fool. Come in the morning at nine. Good-night, Mr. Hargrave.”
And the carriage rolled across Piccadilly into Bond Street in the direction of Grosvenor Square and Lady Holbert's.
The fog was settling down over London. Moving objects were beginning to take on the loom of gigantic figures. It was getting difficult to see.
It must have taken Hargrave half an hour to reach the club. The first man he saw when he went in was Sir Henry, his hands in the pockets of his tweed coat and his figure blocking the passage.
“Hello, Hargrave!” he cried. “What have you got in your room that old Ponsford won't let me go up?”
“Not nine hundred horses!” replied the American.
The Baronet laughed. Then he spoke in a lower voice:
“It's extraordinary lucky that I ran over to the Sorbonne. Come along up to your room and I'll tell you. This place is filling up with a lot of thirsty swine. We can't talk in any public room of it.”
They went up the great stairway, lined with paintings of famous colonials celebrated in the English wars, and into the room. Hargrave turned on the light and poked up the fire. Sir Henry sat down by the table. He took out his three newspapers and laid them down before him.