Tony heard the rattle of a metal cover upon a dish. He looked in the direction whence the sound came--he looked to the right-hand side of the restaurant. A door stood open there, and in the passage beyond the door he saw a waiter pass carrying the dish. Moreover, the man who had spoken to him made yet another mistake. He noticed the direction of Tony's glance, and he made a quick movement as though to bar that passage.
"He is here," said Tony; and he thrust the waiter aside. He crossed the restaurant quickly and entered the passage. The passage ran parallel to the restaurant; and, at the end towards the terrace, there was another door upon the opposite side. The waiter with the dish had his hand upon the door-handle, but he turned at the sound of Stretton's step. He, too, noticed the disorder of Tony's dress. At the same moment the man in the restaurant shouted in a warning voice--
"Jules!"
Jules stood in front of the door.
"Monsieur, this room is private," said he.
"Yet I will take the liberty to intrude," said Tony, quietly.
From behind the door there came the sound of a man's voice which Tony did not know. He had, indeed, never heard it before. Then a woman's laugh rang out; and the sound of it angered Tony beyond endurance. He recognised it beyond the possibility of mistake. It was his wife who was laughing so gaily there behind the closed door. He thought of the years he had spent in the determination to regain his wife's esteem, to free himself from her contempt. For the moment he could have laughed bitterly at his persistence as at some egregious folly. It seemed all waste--waste of time, waste of endeavour, waste of suffering. She was laughing! And with Lionel Callon for her companion! The cold, black nights of the North Sea and its gales; the arid sands of the Sahara; all his long service for her ending in that crowning act of desertion--the story was clear in his mind from beginning to end, detailed and complete. And she was laughing in there with Lionel Callon! Her laughter was to him as some biting epigram which epitomised the way in which she had spent the years of his absence. His anger got the better of his self-control.
"Stand away," he cried, in a low, savage voice, to the waiter. And since the man did not instantly move, he seized him by the shoulders and dragged him from the door.
"Monsieur!" the man cried aloud, in a frightened voice, and the dish which he was carrying fell with a clatter on to the floor. Inside the room the laughter suddenly ceased. Tony listened for a second. He could not hear even a whisper. There was complete silence. He smiled rather grimly to himself; he was thinking that this was not, at all events, the silence of contempt.
Could he have seen through the door into the room he would have been yet more convinced. All the gaiety vanished in an instant from Millie's face. She was sitting opposite the door; she sat and stared at it in terror. The blood ebbed from the cheeks, leaving them as white as paper.