Among the more ebullient gathering in that gay resort he could discover no cause for alarm. And no one took any special notice of him until, among some still later comers, he noticed a haggardly handsome woman, in a gown so scant that she might well have been glad of the great bunch of camellias she wore at her breast, who was pointing him out to one of the two men in her company.
Slyne's heart almost stopped beating at that, and one of his hands involuntarily slipped round to where, in a padded pocket within the arm-hole of his thin evening-coat, he had a little double-barrelled pistol concealed.
He caught the woman's eye again while she was whispering volubly to the attentive listener at her elbow, a fashionably foolish-looking young man of a stamp whose appearance is sometimes deceitful, and wondered sickly what was coming as that individual, having looked him over quite openly and with the aid of an eye-glass, rose and approached him across the room.
He glanced up in admirably assumed surprise, however, for all answer to the other's gruffly casual, "Good evenin', sir.
"Will you excuse my askin' whether you'd care to sell the car I saw you drivin' past in, an hour ago?" inquired the stranger, quite unabashed. "Because—I want it, don't y'know."
Slyne's face remained an immobile mask, although in his heart he was dully conscious of an almost overwhelming sense of relief.
"It isn't for sale at the moment," he answered, suavely enough, but as if a little offended.
"But—I want it," reiterated the stranger, who did not seem to lack a sufficient sense of his own importance. "And I'll give you practically your own price for it. It's for a lady, don't y'know—and as a favour to me, eh?"
"I'd be very glad to oblige you," said Slyne, elated beyond expression to find not only that his fears had been groundless, that his visitor was really a fool and not a knave in disguise, but also that, if he played his own cards properly, he might pocket a still fatter profit upon his car than he had anticipated, "but—I can't at the moment. Are you going to be here for a few days?"
"I'm at the Cap Martin for a week. As soon as you change your mind you can come over an' see me there. Ask for Lord Ingoldsby. Good evenin' to you," answered his visitor with all the sulky insolence of a spoiled child; and slouched back to his own table, where, Slyne had the satisfaction of seeing, he had to endure a rating from his enchantress for his ill-success on her errand. And Slyne almost smiled.