“Still you ought to be careful,” he said austerely.
He looked at Sally, who was now dividing her attention between the poodle and a raffish-looking mongrel, who had joined the party, and returned to the topic of the mysterious Scrymgeour.
“How is Scrymgeour's dyspepsia?”
The red-haired young man seemed but faintly interested in the vicissitudes of Scrymgeour's interior.
“Do you notice the way her hair sort of curls over her ears?” he said. “Eh? Oh, pretty much the same, I think.”
“What hotel are you staying at?”
“The Normandie.”
Sally, dipping into the box for another chocolate cream, gave an imperceptible start. She, too, was staying at the Normandie. She presumed that her admirer was a recent arrival, for she had seen nothing of him at the hotel.
“The Normandie?” The dark man looked puzzled. “I know Roville pretty well by report, but I've never heard of any Hotel Normandie. Where is it?”
“It's a little shanty down near the station. Not much of a place. Still, it's cheap, and the cooking's all right.”