‘Tell me,’ she asked, a little abruptly, ‘how long have you had your valet?’
‘About five minutes, I believe,’ he answered. ‘He is a substitute. My own man was taken ill at 南海佛山桑拿体验 luncheon-time. Why do you ask?’
‘Because he is the first person,’ she explained, ‘who has succeeded in puzzling me in one particular way since I can remember.’
He looked at her as though for an explanation, and in a moment she continued.
‘I flatter myself that I never forget a face. Your valet is perfectly well-known to me and yet I cannot tell you who he is.’
Lavendale glanced uneasily towards the door.
‘I shan’t keep him,’ he
said. ‘I hate prejudices, but I am full of them. The fellow’s a Jap, of course.’
Suzanne did not reply for a moment. Her attention seemed to have suddenly wandered. Then she turned around with a little laugh.
‘I am hungry, my friend!’ she exclaimed. ‘Let us go. And yet, remember this. Temporary servants are bad things for people who follow our profession.’
They left the room. Niko was standing 佛山桑拿女电话qqwith the front door wide open, his master’s hat and gloves in his hand.
‘I will be here at seven o’clock in the morning, sir,’ he promised, ‘and bring news of Perkins.’
Lavendale nodded. The door was closed softly behind them. At the bottom of the stairs he glanced up.
‘Wish I could get rid of the ridiculous idea I have about 黄岐桑拿体验that fellow,’ he remarked.
‘Is there anything in your rooms of particular—I will not say value, I will say interest?’ she inquired.
‘I suppose
I have the usual amount of valuables,’ he admitted, ‘but Perkins is a very careful servant, and I am sure he would never have sent any one who wasn’t reliable. As regards my papers and that sort of thing, they are all locked up in a safe with a combination lock.’
She did not pursue the subject and it faded quickly from Lavendale’s mind. They dined in a quiet 佛山桑拿按摩站街 corner at the Milan and they talked of many things, chiefly the war.
‘Do you realize,’ he asked her, towards the end of their meal, ‘that you are still a complete mystery to me?’
She nodded affably.
‘Yes?’
‘You know what I mean, of course,’ he went on. ‘Three weeks ago we joined hands for a moment. We were—may I not use the word?佛山夜生活kb场 —associates. We were not, perhaps, completely successful in our enterprise, but at least we prevented that marvellous secret from ever reaching an enemy’s hands. Then you disappeared. I heard nothing from you until your voice startled me down the telephone to-night—you want to dine with me. Well, I am your slave and here I am, but tell me, where have you been all this time?’
‘In France,’ she answered.
‘And what have you been doing?’
‘Attending to my own business.’
‘And what is that?’ he asked coolly.
She raised her eyebrows but her air of offence was obviously assumed. She lit a cigarette and watched the smoke for a minute. He was absorbed in the study of her hands—her unusually firm yet delicate fingers, ringless save for one large, quaintly-cut emerald.
‘In my life,’ she said, ‘I have no confidants.’
‘That seems a pity,’佛山桑拿网2019论坛 he replied. ‘We might be useful to one another.’
‘I am not so sure,’ she answered thoughtfully. ‘For instance, although we speak together in English, my soul is French. I am for France and France only. England is our very dear ally. England is a splendid and an honourable nation, but it is France’s future welfare in which I am concerned, and not England’s. You, on the other hand, are Saxon. England and America, after all, are very close together.’
‘Greatest mistake of your life,’ he assured her. ‘I have a great respect for England and a great liking for English people, and I believe that she was dragged into this war without wanting it, but, on the other hand, as I told you once before, I am for America and America only. England has asked for what she is getting for a good many years. If even she gets a good hiding it won’t do 佛山桑拿妈咪电话 her any harm.’
‘But America is so far outside,’ she observed.
‘Don’t you make any mistake,’ he answered promptly. ‘The world grows smaller, year by year. The America of fifty years ago has become impossible to-day. We have our political interests in every country, and, however slow and unwilling we may be to take up our responsibilities, we’ve got to come into line with the other great Powers and use the same methods.’
‘You may be right,’ she confessed. ‘Very well, then, you are for America and I am for France. Now tell me, as between Germany and England how are your sympathies?’
‘With England, without a doubt,’ he pronounced. ‘Mind, I am not a rabid anti-German. I am not in the least sure that a nation with the great genius for progress that Germany has shown is not to some extent justified by taking up the sword to hew a 佛山夜生活论坛 larger place in the world for her own people. But that does not affect my answer to your question. My sympathies are with England.’
She flicked the ash from her cigarette. She was looking a little languidly across the room towards a table set against the wall.
‘If your sympathy were a little stronger,’ she remarked quietly, ‘I could show you how to render England an incalculable service.’
‘Tell me how?’
‘First of all,’ she continued, ‘look at those three men and tell me what you think of them?’
He turned a little in his place and glanced towards the table which she had indicated. One of the three men who were seated at it was obviously a foreigner. His hair was grey towards the temples, although his moustache was almost jet-black; his cheek-bones were high, his teeth a little prominent. He wore evening clothes of the most 佛山桑拿按摩价格 correct cut, his shirt and links were unexceptionable. His two companions were men of a different stamp. The one who seemed to dominate the party was a huge man, clean-shaven, with puffy face and small eyes. He wore a dark flannel suit of transatlantic cut. He was drinking a large whisky and soda and smoking a cigar, and had apparently eaten nothing. His companion was of smaller build, with flaxen moustache and hair, and dressed in light grey clothes and yellow boots. On the face of it, the trio were ill-assorted.
‘Well, I should say,’ Lavendale remarked, ‘that the dark man in the corner chair was a foreigner—a Russian, for choice. The other two are, of course, American business men. The face of the big man seems familiar to me.’
‘You’ve probably seen his picture in the illustrated papers,’ she told him. ‘That is Jacob P. Weald. 佛山桑拿全套 He was once called, I believe, the powder king.’