“Nothing,” I replied. “I’ve heard of him.”
She looked me very straight in the face from beneath her long dark lashes.
“Ah! you won’t tell me what you know,” she said mysteriously.
“Neither will you, Lola!” Then, after a pause, I added: “I want to know whether he is your father’s friend—or his enemy.”
“His friend, no doubt.”
“Why should your father have as friend a man who robs a bank, eh?” I asked very earnestly.
“Ah! That I don’t know!” replied the girl as she bent towards me earnestly. “I—I’m always so puzzled. Ever since my dear mother died, just after I came back from Roedene, I have wondered—and always wondered. I can discover nothing—absolutely nothing! Father is so secret, and neither Madame nor he will tell me anything. They only say that their business is no affair of mine. My father has business, no doubt, Mr. Hargreave. From his business he derives his income. But I cannot see why he should so constantly meet men and women in all sorts of social positions and give them orders, as it were. I am not blind, neither am I deaf.”
“You have listened in secret, eh?” I asked.
“I confess that I have.” Then, after a slight pause, she went on: “And I have overheard some very strange conversations. My father seems to direct the good fortunes of certain of his friends, while at the same time he plots against his enemies. But I suppose, after all, it is business.”
Business! Little did the girl dream of the real occupation of her unscrupulous father, or the desperate characters of his friends, both male and female.