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 a slight foreign intonation which he did not recognize. Perhaps she was Czechoslovakian or from Trebizond. The papers said. . . What did the papers say? He could not remember.

Herbert. . . the exotic product of America's fourth largest industry was speaking. . . do leave me alone with Mr. Deacon. I am sure we have so much to say to each other, isn't it?

Ringrose gracefully retired. Ambrose silently regarded his companion with rapidly increasing alarm. He was certain that he could find no single word to speak to her. The pupils of her extraordinarily lustrous eyes, the borders of which had been darkened by mascara, seemed to expand. Did she, he wondered, employ belladonna? She was dressed very simply in black, but her wrists were heavy with flexible platinum bracelets in which huge emeralds and diamonds gleamed. The pearls on her fingers and in the lobes of her ears were of an incredible size. Ambrose breathed in an indescribably pungent odour. She had never erased the ingratiating smile from her magenta lips and at last she spoke.

I'm afraid, she suggested almost coyly, you heard. . . you saw. . . my maid. . . Poor Elissa! she adores me! She couldn't work for anybody else. . . . Imperia was smoking and while she talked, she