“Anyway,” he added, “I didn’t leave you so stranded as that Thomas Felix Waite fellow.”
Shame that the blue of the pretty girl’s eyes was so hard, so wretched and so hard. “Oh, yes,” she sneered; “there ain’t much to choose between you two rotten gentlemen!” And she laughed; and then, because she was a girl, she sobbed. “Oh, Christ, why’ve I always been so wretched!”
He was silent for what seemed a long time. Her sobs spent themselves quietly in the depths of her self-pity, and at last he said softly: “Anyway, Betty, you’ve got your own back on the Felix Waite family now. You’ll be able to go back to the country, as you’ve always wanted to, and live comfortably for a time. Or perhaps you’ll be able to start a little shop of some kind.”
She stared at him in immense amazement, but he was looking out of the little window....
“Michael Wagstaffe,” she breathed, “what the blazes are you talking about?”
“A diamond ring worth £2000,” said Michael Wagstaffe to the window.
“Balmy!” she jeered at him.
“Hand it over, Betty,” said the cavalier of the streets sharply. He stared down her frightened incredulous look. “It’s no good your saying you haven’t got it, because I guessed you had when I saw you leaving the Felix Waite house this evening, and I know you have now I’ve seen your face....” She began shrilly, but he snapped her up. “Now don’t be silly, child. It’s no good your being selfish with it because you’ll never be able to get rid of it on your own, and you’ll only get copped if you try. I know about these things. So hand it over and try not to look as though I was boring you with a tale about potatoes sprouting from the Albert Memorial. We’ll go halves on it, I’m telling you. But you’ll have to trust me.”
She leapt up, faced him, a figure of tense fury. “I trust you! You poor silly cad, I trust you! Get away from my sight before——” And she suddenly realised that she had not denied having the diamond-ring, that he had provoked her outburst, that he was laughing at her. She threw herself down on the sofa again and fumbled in the yellow packet for a cigarette.
“Clever, aren’t you!” she sneered.