'If you mean to stay, I suppose I can't prevent you.'
'Exactly.'
Sam appeared again in a gap in the trees, walking slowly and pensively, as one retreating from his Moscow. Her eyes followed him till he was out of sight.
'If you like,' I said bitterly, 'you may put what I am doing down to professional rivalry. If I am in love with Mrs Ford and am here to steal Ogden for her, it is natural for me to do all I can to prevent Buck MacGinnis getting him. There is no need for you to look on me as an ally because we are working together.'
'We are not working together.'
'We shall be in a very short time. Buck will not let another night go by without doing something.'
'I don't believe that you saw him.'
'Just as you please,' I said, and walked away. What did it matter to me what she believed?
The day dragged on. Towards evening the weather broke suddenly, after the fashion of spring in England. Showers of rain drove me to the study.
It must have been nearly ten o'clock when the telephone rang.