"Very good, sir, though I hope you won't attach any importance to it, sir. It seems that one of the maids—Marie it was, sir—went out to post a letter at about half-past five. Coming back she met the Captain's car…"
"Yes, go on."
"She says the car was going fast, but as it passed her she could see inside very plainly, and the nurse was sitting quite close to the Captain, with her head resting on his shoulder. That's all, sir, and it's not the kind of thing I care to repeat, though of course there may be nothing in it, sir."
"No, certainly not, Chalmers, nor does it explain what I'm trying to find out. Thank you."
He had preserved an indifferent air, but what the butler had told him was in the nature of a great shock. He felt suddenly quite sick with disillusionment. Had he been a fool all along, completely wrong in his estimate of this girl? Was she simply like so many others, possessed of two sides, one which she kept for him, and the other, perhaps, not quite so restrained? But for this story he would not have believed it possible…. After all, why attach so much importance to the tale of an idle servant? What if she had made a mistake, what if she had invented it out of mischief? Surely he knew Esther too well to be deceived in her. Impatiently he strove to thrust the suspicion aside.
Yet in his unhappy brain, buzzing now with fever, a voice sardonically demanded, "What man ever does really know a girl?" Particularly—he winced at the thought—what man who has money? Isn't it a common sight, that of a woman making herself attractive to a man because of what he can give her, while all the time she is secretly drawn towards someone else? For that matter Esther herself had admitted to him that she found Holliday attractive. Then what about that occasion, a trifling incident enough, when he had come upon the two of them standing so close together, gazing into each other's eyes? He had thought at the time that the moment held at least the germ of a flirtation. Why should Esther be immune from suspicion? Wasn't it possible that from the beginning she had cherished a hidden penchant for the callous Arthur? She would not be the first victim by a long shot.
Yet—Esther! He could picture her now, her clear, frank eyes looking straight into his with an expression of boyish simplicity. How could one suspect her? Surely she was incapable of intrigue; why, he had believed in her so! She was the one girl he felt he wanted for his wife, if she would have him. Only a little North Country streak of caution had held him back from asking her the actual question—or at least it was partly due to caution and partly to the circumstances of his father's death and his own illness. He had meant to as soon as this business was over. Good God! Suppose he had proposed and she had accepted him, but without caring for him—suppose without any love in her heart she had married him! He might not have found out the truth until too late. The very idea revolted him; he clenched his fists so violently that the nails of his right hand dug deep into his injured thumb. Feeling the pain and seeing the red ooze up through the bandage, he struggled briefly with unwelcome recollections, then on a sudden impulse tore off the enfolding gauze and flung it angrily into the fireplace. He had broken open the plagued wound again, but he did not care.
If only he could know for certain whether to believe that maid's story or not! Was Esther in plain language "that kind of girl"? The thought that he might never know the truth goaded him to fury. If she was all he wanted to believe her, how could one account for that detestable picture of her nestling close to Holliday, her head on his shoulder? How explain her disappearance? For that is what he began to call it. During the course of the evening he rang up every hotel and pension in Cannes and the neighbourhood without finding any news of her. Moreover, the one person who could give him any information about her movements—Holliday himself—had at midnight not returned to the Carlton. What was one to make of that fact? It seemed to indicate that the pair of them were off somewhere together dining—and after that, what?
There was no real sleep for him that night, and the morning found him decidedly worse. He did not even demur when the doctor came with Dido and quietly laid down the law about rest and diet. He agreed listlessly, unwilling to cause poor Dido additional anxiety. After all, why not give in to them? They were only giving him good advice; he had been stupid.
An hour later, however, he was not too ill to crawl to the telephone when no one was about. Once again he rang up the Carlton in quest of Holliday, only to be told that the Captain had not returned all night, was still away.