"His reaction?" inquired Devonham, amused in spite of his graver emotions of uneasiness and exasperation.
"None whatever. I scarcely think he realized he had been kissed. His interest was so entirely elsewhere. I saw his face a moment among the white ermine, the bare arms and jewels that enveloped him." Fillery frowned faintly. "The car had almost stopped. Lady Gleeson was leaning back again. He looked at me, and his voice was intense and eager: 'Dear Fillery,' he said, 'we have found each other, I have found her. She knows, she remembers the way back. Here we can do so little.'
"Lady Gleeson, however, had interpreted the words in another way.
"'I'll come to-morrow to see you,' she said at once intensely. 'You must let me come,'—the last words addressed to me, of course."
The two men looked at one another a moment in silence, and for the first time during the conversation they exchanged a smile....
"I got him to bed," Fillery concluded. "In ten minutes he was sound asleep." And his eyes indicated the room overhead.
He leaned back, and quietly began to fill his pipe. The account was over.
As though a great spring suddenly released him, Paul Devonham stood up. His untidy hair hung wild, his glasses were crooked on his big nose, his tie askew. His whole manner bristled with accumulated challenge and disagreement.
"Who?" he cried. "Who? Edward, I ask you?"
His colleague, yet knowing exactly what he meant, looked up questioningly. He looked him full in the face.