“Down at Chelsea,” he answered, “about two miles and a half.”

“Take a taxi and drive there,” she commanded, “or stop.  You will find my car outside.  I will telephone down to say that you are to use it.  Change into your evening clothes and come back for me.  I want you to take me out to supper.”

He looked at her in amazement.  She stamped her foot.

“Don’t stand there hesitating!” she ordered.  “Do as I say!  You don’t expect I am going to help you to buy your wretched property if you refuse me the simplest of favors?  Hurry, I say!  Hurry!”

“I am really very sorry,” Tavernake interposed, “but I do not possess a dress suit.  I would go, with pleasure, but I haven’t got such a thing.”

She looked at him for a moment incredulously.  Then she broke into a fit of uncontrollable laughter.  She sat down upon the edge of a couch and wiped the tears from her eyes.

“Oh, you strange, you wonderful person!” she exclaimed.  “You want to buy an estate and you want to borrow twelve thousand pounds, and you know where Beatrice is and you won’t tell me, and you are fully convinced, because you burst into a house through the wall, that you saved poor Pritchard from being poisoned, and you don’t possess a dress suit!  Never mind, as it happens it doesn’t matter about the dress suit.  You shall take me out as you are.”

Tavernake felt in his pockets and remembered that he had only thirty shillings with him.

“Here, carry my purse,” she said carelessly.  “We are going downstairs to the smaller restaurant.  I have been traveling since six o’clock, and I am starving.”

“But how about my clothes?” Tavernake objected.  “Will they be all right?”

“It doesn’t matter where we are going,” she answered.  “You look very well as you are.  Come and let me put your tie straight.”

She came close to him and her fingers played for a moment with his tie.  She was very near to him and she laughed deliberately into his face.  Tavernake held himself quite stiff and felt foolish.  He also felt absurdly happy.

“There,” she remarked, when she had arranged it to her satisfaction, “you look all right now.  I wonder,” she added, half to herself, “what you do look like.  Something Colonial and forceful, I think.  Never mind, help me on with my cloak and come along.  You are a most respectable-looking escort, and a very useful one.”

Although Tavernake was nominally the host, it was Elizabeth who selected the table and ordered the supper.  There were very few other guests in the room, the majority being down in the larger restaurant, but among these few Tavernake noticed two of the girls from the chorus at the Atlas.  Elizabeth had chosen a table from which she had a view of the door, and she took the seat facing it.  From the first Tavernake felt certain that she was watching for some one.

“Talk to me now, please, about this speculation,” she insisted.  “I should like to know all about it, and whether you are sure that I shall get ten per cent for my money.”