“My mother comes with me—and I shall keep Stonor on as my secretary. He likes out of-the-way parts of the world.”
“No one else goes with you?”
Jack flushed.
“You mean—?”
“A girl who loves you very dearly—who has been willing to lay down her life for you.”
“How could I ask her?” muttered the boy. “After all that has happened, could I go to her and—oh, what sort of a lame story could I tell?”
“Les femmes—they have a wonderful genius for manufacturing crutches for stories like that.”
“Yes, but—I’ve been such a damned fool!”
“So have all of us, at one time and another,” observed Poirot philosophically.
But Jack’s face had hardened.