She looked at him quizzically. “Have you many influential friends?” she asked, with just a touch of sarcasm in her pleasant, low-pitched voice.
A slight flush dyed Moreno’s swarthy cheek at what he considered her impertinent question.
“More perhaps than you would think possible,” he answered stiffly.
She read in his nettled tone that she had wounded his amour propre. She hastened to make amends. She was always a little too prone to speak without reflection.
“Oh please don’t think I meant to be rude. But we soldiers of fortune, and all of us here are that, are not likely to have many friends in high places.”
The journalist paid her back in her own coin.
“Not real friends, of course. But still, we swim about in many cross currents. You yourself have a certain position in a certain section of what we might call semi-smart society.”
Violet Hargrave laughed good-humouredly. She was liberal-minded in this respect, that she seldom resented a thrust at herself when she had been the aggressor.
“Very neatly put. I have no illusions about my actual position. I am not sure that my particular circle is even semi-smart, except in its own estimation.”
So peace was restored between them, and they chatted gaily together during the progress of the meal. She had taken a great liking to the brainy young journalist. And Moreno, on his side, was forced to admit that she was a very attractive woman.