The Secret Adversary (Tommy & Tuppence 1)

“Yes?”

“You and Beresford. What about it?”

“I don’t understand you,” replied Tuppence with dignity, adding ratherinconsequently: “And, anyway, you’re wrong!”

“Not got a sort of kindly feeling for one another?”

“Certainly not,” said Tuppence with warmth. “Tommy and I arefriends--nothing more.”

“I guess every pair of lovers has said that sometime or another,” observed Julius.

“Nonsense!” snapped Tuppence. “Do I look the sort of girl that’s alwaysfalling in love with every man she meets?”

“You do not. You look the sort of girl that’s mighty often gettingfallen in love with!”

“Oh!” said Tuppence, rather taken aback. “That’s a compliment, Isuppose?”

“Sure. Now let’s get down to this. Supposing we never find Beresfordand--and----”

“All right--say it! I can face facts. Supposing he’s--dead! Well?”

“And all this business fiddles out. What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know,” said Tup

pence forlornly.

“You’ll be darned lonesome, you poor kid.”

“I shall be all right,” snapped Tuppence with her usual resentment ofany kind of pity.

“What about marriage?” inquired Julius. “Got any views on the subject?”

“I intend to marry, of course,” replied Tuppence. “That is, if”--shepaused, knew a momentary longing to draw back, and then stuck to herguns bravely--“I can find some one rich enough to make it worth mywhile. That’s frank, isn’t it? I dare say you despise me for it.”

“I never despise business instinct,” said Julius. “What particularfigure have you in mind?”

“Figure?” asked Tuppence, puzzled. “Do you mean tall or short?”

“No. Sum--income.”

“Oh, I--I haven’t quite worked that out.”

“What about me?”

_“You?”_

“Sure thing.”

“Oh, I couldn’t!”

“Why not?”

“I tell you I couldn’t.”

“Again, why not?”

“It would seem so unfair.”

“I don’t see anything unfair about it. I call your bluff, that’s all. Iadmire you immensely, Miss Tuppence, more than any girl I’ve ever met.You’re so darned plucky. I’d just love to give you a real, rattling goodtime. Say the word, and we’ll run round right away to some high-classjeweller, and fix up the ring business.”

“I can’t,” gasped Tuppence.

“Because of Beresford?”

“No, no, _no!_”

“Well then?”

Tuppence merely continued to shake her head violently.

“You can’t reasonably expect more dollars than I’ve got.”

“Oh, it isn’t that,” gasped Tuppence with an almost hysterical laugh.“But thanking you very much, and all that, I think I’d better say no.”

“I’d be obliged if you’d do me the favour to think it over untilto-morrow.”

“It’s no use.”

“Still, I guess we’ll leave it like that.”

“Very well,” said Tuppence meekly.

Neither of them spoke again until they reached the _Ritz_.

Tuppence went upstairs to her room. She felt morally battered to theground after her conflict with Julius’s vigorous personality. Sittingdown in front of the glass, she stared at her own reflection for someminutes.

“Fool,” murmured Tuppence at length, making a grimace. “Little fool.Everything you want--everything you’ve ever hoped for, and you go andbleat out ‘no’ like an idiotic little sheep. It’s your one chance. Whydon’t you take it? Grab it? Snatch at it? What more do you want?”

As if in answer to her own question, her eyes fell on a small snapshotof Tommy that stood on her dressing-table in a shabby frame. For amoment she struggled for self-control, and then abandoning all presence,she held it to her lips and burst into a fit of sobbing.

“Oh, Tommy, Tommy,” she cried, “I do love you so--and I may never seeyou again....”

At the end of five minutes Tuppence sat up, blew her nose, and pushedback her hair.

“That’s that,” she observed sternly. “Let’s look facts in the face. Iseem to have fallen in love--with an idiot of a boy who probably doesn’tcare two straws about me.” Here she paused. “Anyway,” she resumed, asthough arguing with an unseen opponent, “I don’t _know_ that he does.He’d never have dared to say so. I’ve always jumped on sentiment--andhere I am being more sentimental than anybody. What idiots girls are!I’ve always thought so. I suppose I shall sleep with his photographunder my pillow, and dream about him all night. It’s dreadful to feelyou’ve been false to your principles.”

Tuppence shook her head sadly, as she reviewed her backsliding.

“I don’t know what to say to Julius, I’m sure. Oh, what a fool I feel!I’ll have to say _something_--he’s so American and thorough, he’llinsist upon having a reason. I wonder if he did find anything in thatsafe----”

Tuppence’s meditations went off on another tack. She reviewed the eventsof last night carefully and persistently. Somehow, they seemed bound upwith Sir James’s enigmatical words....

Suddenly she gave a great start--the colour faded out of her face. Hereyes, fascinated, gazed in front of her, the pupils dilated.

“Impossible,” she murmured. “Impossible! I must be going mad even tothink of such a thing....”

Monstrous--yet it explained everything....

After a moment’s reflection she sat down and wrote a note, weighing eachword as she did so. Finally she nodded her head as though satisfied, andslipped it into an envelope which she addressed to Julius. She wentdown the passage to his sitting-room and knocked at the door. As she hadexpected, the room was empty. She left the note on the table.

A small page-boy was waiting outside her own door when she returned toit.

“Telegram for you, miss.”

Tuppence took it from the salver, and tore it open carelessly. Then shegave a cry. The telegram was from Tommy!