Fricker gave a short laugh, and pushed a silver box across to her. She leant back in an extraordinary perfection of pleasure.
'There are a lot of these notes,' he said. 'Are cheques out of fashion, Miss Ryle?'
'You're so suspicious,' she retorted. Apart from difficulties about a banking account, she would not have missed handling the notes for worlds.
He counted them carefully. 'Correct!' he pronounced.
'And here's your letter!' she cried, producing it from her pocket; the action was a veritable _coup de théâtre_.
'Oh, I remember my letter,' he said with a smile--and a brow knit in vexation. Then he looked across the table at her. 'I'd have betted ten to one against it,' he remarked.
'You underrate the odds,' Peggy told him in a triumph that really invited Nemesis. 'I'd have betted a thousand to one when I left your house.'
'You're a wonderful girl,' said Fricker. 'How the devil did you do it?'
She grew sober for a moment. 'I'm ashamed of how I did it.' Then she burst out again victoriously: 'But I'd do it again, Mr. Fricker!'
'You have all the elements of greatness,' said he, with a gravity that was affected and yet did not seem entirely pretence. 'You've got three thousand five hundred pounds out of somebody----'
'I've got four thousand,' interrupted Peggy.
'That's not there! That's kept for me. That's the most splendid part of it all!' In that indeed seemed to her to lie the finest proof of victory. The rest might have been shame; that her five hundred lay intact meant change of heart. She had not pressed her five hundred on Airey Newton. There are times when everything should be taken, as there are when all should be given; her instinct had told her that.
Fricker smiled again; his deft fingers parted the notes into two uneven heaps. The fingers seemed to work of their own accord and to have eyes of their own, for his eyes did not leave Peggy Ryle's face.
'Is the man in love with you?' He could not help returning to that explanation.
'Not a farthing, if he had been!' cried Peggy.
'Why can't I be angry with you?' she cried in an amused despair. 'Are--are greed and--nonsense the only things you know?'
'Are you finding new words for love?' he asked with a sneer.
Peggy laughed. 'That's really not bad,' she admitted candidly. Under the circumstances she did not grudge Fricker a verbal victory. The poor man was badly beaten; let him have his gibe!