"Can she have said anything?" Roger thought quickly. But the calm expression of the beautiful, dark face was in itself an answer to his silent question.
The two men strolled up to Virginia, who asked and received permission from the Countess to introduce her brother and cousin; and soon they were talking as if they had known each other for days instead of moments.
The Portuguese beauty was distinctly ingratiating in her manner to all three, so much so that Roger became thoughtful. He was more certain than ever, if that were possible, that this woman was not Liane Devereux, for the voice was many tones deeper, and the Countess spoke English with an accent that was not at all French.
It seemed to him that no woman could disguise herself so completely—face, voice, mannerisms, accent—no matter how clever she might be; besides, Virginia's idea was ridiculous. But he began to wonder whether the lovely Portuguese had a right to her title, or, if she had, whether it were as well gilded as her charming frocks and her residence at this expensive hotel would suggest at first sight.
It seemed to him that she caught too readily at new acquaintances for a rich and haughty daughter of Portuguese aristocracy, and though he believed that he understood, only too well, Virginia's motive for cultivating a friendship, he was inclined to fear that the girl might be victimized by an adventuress.
The Countess de Mattos was too handsome and too striking not to have been remarked in Cairo, no matter how quietly she might live at the Ghezireh Palace Hotel, and he determined to make inquiries of some officers whom he knew there.
At all events, plans for the present were changed. Instead of a day or two in Cairo they were to stay on indefinitely. George, as well as Roger, was taken into the secret, but Lady Gardiner was told only the fact. She was pleased at first, for she was fond of Cairo, and had never had a chance to stop there in luxury before. She did not, however, like the Countess de Mattos, who was much too handsome to be acceptable to her; and before the slower and more prudent Roger had learnt anything, she was primed with all the gossip of the hotel regarding the Portuguese beauty. There was a certain Mrs. Maitland-Fox at the Ghezireh Palace, whom Lady Gardiner had met before, and from her she gathered the crumbs of gossip with which she immediately afterward regaled Virginia.
"They" said that the Countess de Mattos, although she might really be a countess (and there were those who pretended to vouch for this), had scarcely a penny. She traded on her beauty and the lovely clothes with which some trusting milliner must have supplied her, to pick up rich or influential friends, from whom she was certain to extort money in some way or another. And it was Mrs. Maitland-Fox's advice that Miss Beverly should be warned to beware of the beautiful lady.
Among his friends, Roger heard something of the same sort, and though he was bound to admit that it was all very vague, he begged Virginia to abandon a forlorn hope, and let the Portuguese woman alone.
"If she were really a Portuguese woman she might vanish from before my eyes, for all I should care," obstinately returned the girl. "But she is Liane Devereux, and if she breathed poison I wouldn't let her go till I had torn out her secret."