'I shall have the pleasure,' he said, 'on Friday night? You will not forget--the Ritz at eight o'clock?'
He made a little bow--an ugly, awkward bow--and left the room. There was nothing in his manner to indicate what his sensations were. Lavendale and Suzanne looked at one another.
'Was there anything very important there?' she asked.
'Nothing from your point of view, but everything from mine,' he told her. 'There was a list of forty-two names of German-Americans, each giving a million dollars towards a specific purpose. There was a plan of a few remaining estates in a certain part of Brazil, still to be purchased to establish what at some seasonable juncture should be declared to be a German colony. Some slight trouble with the Government of Brazil, a German gunboat, and behold!--German South America and to Hell with the Monroe Doctrine! A very admirable scheme, only----'
'I don't fancy that, thanks to you, those estates will ever come into the market,' he remarked dryly, 'not for a German purchaser, at any rate.'
'Mr. Lavendale,' she said earnestly 'I am terrified!'
'I am afraid of Mr. Kessner,' she confessed. 'He took it much too quietly.'
'A man of his temperament,' he said, 'seldom wastes his time or his emotions. He was playing for a great stake which he knows now that he will lose. At the same time, he has lost purely through accident.'
'I wonder,' she exclaimed, 'whether he really expects us to dine with him at the Ritz on Friday night!'
'We'll go and see, at any rate,' Lavendale declared.
Lavendale glanced at his thin gold watch and replaced it in his waistcoat pocket.
'Three minutes past eight,' he remarked. 'Half a dozen pairs of gloves for me, I think. Shall I go in and see about a table or would you rather dine somewhere else?'
Suzanne made a little grimace. They were in the foyer of the Ritz Hotel, and she was wearing a wonderful new gown.
'It is most disappointing,' she declared. 'I had made up my mind to conquest.'
'I am very impressionable,' Lavendale assured her.
'It is not you whom I wish to subjugate.'
'I am too easy a victim, I suppose,' Lavendale sighed. 'I am afraid that to-night, however, you will have to be content with me.'
Her face suddenly changed, a brilliant smile parted her lips, she glanced at him triumphantly. Lavendale looked over his shoulder. Mr. Kessner was crossing the lounge towards them with outstretched hand.