“Lucy!” called Rita softly.
“Yes?”
“Is it—is it really safe here?”
Pyne glanced over his shoulder towards the retreating figure of Mrs. Sin, then:
“I shall be awake,” he replied. “I would rather you had not come, but since you are here you must go through with it.” He glanced again along the narrow passage created by the presence of the partitions, and spoke in a voice lower yet. “You have never really trusted me, Rita. You were wise. But you can trust me now. Good night, dear.”
He walked out of the room and along the carpeted corridor to a little apartment at the back of the house, furnished comfortably but in execrably bad taste. A cheerful fire was burning in the grate, the flue of which had been ingeniously diverted by Sin Sin Wa so that the smoke issued from a chimney of the adjoining premises. On the mantelshelf, which was garishly draped, were a number of photographs of Mrs. Sin in Spanish dancing costume.
Pyne seated himself in an armchair and lighted a cigarette. Except for the ticking of a clock the room was silent as a padded cell. Upon a little Moorish table beside a deep, low settee lay a complete opium-smoking outfit.
Lolling back in the chair and crossing his legs, Sir Lucien became lost in abstraction, and he was thus seated when, some ten minutes later, Mrs. Sin came in.
“Ah!” she said, her harsh voice softened to a whisper. “I wondered. So you wait to smoke with me?” Pyne slowly turned his head, staring at her as she stood in the doorway, one hand resting on her hip and her shapely figure boldly outlined by the kimono.
“No,” he replied. “I don’t want to smoke. Are they all provided for?”