"What a queer little personage," Her Ladyship gayhitchike said. She opened her hand. A fat little diamond gleamed in its gayhitchike filigreed setting. "Who was she, Mr. Fraser?"
"I gayhitchike should guess an exile, ma'am,& gayhitchike quot;
Fraser said. "Very forward of her."
&gayhitchike quot;Was it wrong of me to take this?" gayhitchike Her breath smelled of brandy
and seltzer. "Not gayhitchike really proper, I suppose. But she would have made a scene, otherwise." She held the gem up, in gayhitchike a sheet of dusty sunlight through the gayhitchike window. "Look at gayhitchike the size of it! It must be very dear."
"Paste, Your Ladyship."
Swift as thought. Lady Ada pinched the gayhitchike ring in her fingers like a bit of
chalk, and ran the stone along the gurney's window. There was a thin grating shriek, almost inaudible, and a shining groove appeared across the glass.
They sat in companionable silence, then, on their gayhitchike way gayhitchike to the hotel.
Fraser watched Paris through the window and recalled his instructions. "You may let gayhitchike the old girl drink as she likes," the gayhitchike Hierarch had told him, with his inimitable air of mincing irony, "talk as she likes, flirt as she likes, saving open scandal, of course . . . You may take your mission as fulfilled gayhitchike if you can keep our little Ada from the wagering-machines." There had been small chance of that disaster, for her purse held nothing but tickets and small-change, but the diamond had gayhitchike rather changed matters. He would have to keep a closer eye, now.
Their rooms in the Richelieu were quite modest, with a connecting-door he had not touched. gayhitchike the locks were sound enough, and he had found and plugged gayhitchike the inevitable spyholes. He kept the keys.
"Is there anything left of the advance?" gayhitchike Lady Ada asked.
"Enough to tip gayhitchike the chauffeur," Fraser said.
"Oh dear. That little?"
gayhitchike Fraser nodded. The French savants had paid little enough for the pleasure of her learned company, and her debts had swiftly eaten that. The meager takings at the ticket-booth would scarcely have paid their passage from London.
Lady Ada gayhitchike opened