"The pleasure of talking to you--of being with you." "You're easily satisfied." "Perhaps not so easily as I seem," he whispered, leaning a little forward in his place. "If only I were sure that you were not in love with Jocelyn Thew!" "If you think that I am," she observed, "why are you always slinging that Beverley girl at me?" "Perhaps," he said coolly, "to make you jealous. All's fair in love and war, you know." "I see. Then what you really want is to make love to me yourself? I'm sitting here and taking notice. Go right ahead." Crawshay let himself go for a few moments, and his companion listened to him approvingly. "It sounds quite like the real thing," she sighed, "but I never trust you Englishmen. You seem to acquire the habit of talking love to us girls just as easily as you drink a cocktail. You know that if I were to put my little hand in yours this moment across the table, you wouldn't know what to do with it." "Try me," Crawshay begged. She held it out--a long, rather thin, capable woman's hand, manicured a few hours ago in the latest fashion, but ringless. Crawshay promptly raised it to his lips. She snatched it away, half amused, half vexed, and glanced furtively around. "If you did that in an American restaurant," she told him, "you'd stand some chance of getting yourself laughed at." "It's quite the custom over here and on the Continent," he assured her equably. "It means--well, just as much as you want it to mean." She sighed and looked at her fingers reflectively. "What you'd like me to tell you, then," she suggested, raising her eyes and looking at him thoughtfully, "is that I've never wasted a thought on Jocelyn Thew, but that Mr. Reginald Crawshay is it with a capital 'I'?" "It would make me very happy," he assured her with much conviction. She laughed at him very softly. Little sparks seemed to flash from her eyes, and her teeth were wonderful. "You're very nice, anyway," she declared, "although I am not sure that I believe in you as much as I'd like to. I'll just tell you as much as I know. It really doesn't amount to anything. It was just after Jocelyn Thew had come back from Nicaragua and Dick Beverley was having a flare-up of his own in New York. They came together, those two, when Dick was in a tight corner. I don't know the story, but I know that Jocelyn Thew played the white man. Dick Beverley owes him perhaps his life, perhaps only his liberty, and his sister knows it. That's how those three stand to one another." "I ought to have puzzled that out myself," Crawshay said humbly. "I am not so sure," she retorted drily, "that you didn't, long ago." "Surmises are of very little interest by the side of facts," he reminded her. "I like to have something solid to build upon." She smiled at him appreciatively. "If I were a sentimental sort of girl," she declared, "I could take a fancy to you, Mr. Crawshay."