He seemed to find it easy enough to make talk; but Sally spared him little attention, being at first exclusively preoccupied with the demands of her hunger, and later--as the meal progressed, renewing her physical strength and turning the ebbing tide of her spirits--thoroughly engaged with the problem of how to extricate herself from this embarrassing association or, if extrication proved impossible, how to turn it to her own advantage. For if the affair went on this way--his way--she were a sorry adventuress indeed. Small cups of black coffee stood before them, steaming, when a question roused her, and she shook herself together and faced her burglar across the cloth, once more full mistress of her faculties. "You're feeling better'?" "Very much," she smiled, "and thank you!" "Don't make me uncomfortable; remember, this is all your fault. "That I'm here, alive and whole, able to enjoy a most unique situation. _Who are you?_" But she wasn't to be caught by any such simple stratagem as a question plumped suddenly at her with all the weight of a rightful demand; she smiled again and shook her head. "Shan't tell." "But if I insist?" "Why don't you, then?" "Meaning insistence won't get me anything?" Sensitive to the hint of a hidden trump, she stiffened slightly. "I haven't asked you to commit yourself. I've got a right to my own privacy." There fell a small pause. Lounging, an elbow on the table, a cigarette fuming idly between his fingers, the man favoured her with a steady look of speculation whose challenge was modified only by the inextinguishable humour smouldering in his eyes--a look that Sally met squarely, dissembling her excitement. For with all her fears and perplexity she could never quite forget that, whatever its sequel, this was verily an adventure after her own heart, that she was looking her best in a wonderful frock and pitting her wits against those of an engaging rogue, that she who had twelve hours ago thought herself better dead was now living intensely an hour of vital emergency. "But," the man said suddenly, and yet deliberately, "surely you won't dispute my right to know who makes free with my own home?" Her bravado was extinguished as suddenly as a candle-flame in a gust of wind. "_Your_ home?" she parroted witlessly. "Mine, yes. If you can forgive me." He fumbled for his card-case. "It has been amusing to play the part you assigned me of amateur cracksman, but really, I'm afraid, it can't be done without a better make-up." He produced and placed before her on the cloth a small white card; and as soon as its neat black script ceased to writhe and run together beneath her gaze she comprehended the name of _Mr. Walter Arden Savage_, with a residence address identical with that of the house wherein her great adventure had begun. "You!" she breathed aghast, "you're not _really_ Mr. Savage?" He smiled indulgently. "I rather think I am." "But--"