"Ena, I repeat I hold you in admiration as one of the cleverest women I have ever known. Nothing deters you—nothing perturbs you! You fix a plan, and you carry it through in your own way—always with profit to our little combination."
"And very substantial profit, I venture to think, eh?"
"I agree," he said, with a grim laugh.
"All thanks to you, my dear Bernie," the red-haired woman said. "But really I am growing just a little apprehensive. Why—I don't know, I cannot tell. But somehow I fear we may play the game once too often. And what then—eh?"
"Funnily enough, I've experienced the same curiously apprehensive feeling of late," he said. "I always try, of course, to crush it out, just as I crush out any other little pricks of conscience which occur to me when I awake in the mornings."
"Very strange that we should both of us entertain apprehensive feelings!" she remarked very thoughtfully. "I hope it's no ill omen! Do you think it is?"
"No," he laughed. "Don't let us seek trouble—for Heaven's sake. At present there is not the slightest danger. Of that I feel confident. Let us go forward. When shall you go up to London?"
"To-morrow. I go to visit my dear friend, Mrs. Pollen—as I have told you."
He laughed.
"So really you are going on a visit to yourself—eh? Excellent! Really you are unique, Ena!"