"Great!"—with a short laugh—"I should think he did. You didn't see me at that time, did you? I was just about to 'pass in my checks,' as your Yankee friends would say. He's a wizard, that's what he is. Never will be a fashionable physician, not enough ambition. Well, cheerio. I shall be seeing you soon no doubt."
He disappeared into the boudoir and closed the door. Roger continued thoughtfully across the landing. Resentment stirred in him at the cool manner in which Arthur Holliday came upstairs unannounced and went into rooms without knocking. Not that he cared on his stepmother's account, but it seemed to him an indignity to his father, an old man, belonging to another and more formal generation. It was evidence of a vulgar streak in Thérèse that she should permit such familiarities, whatever her relations with Holliday might be. He was glad that his simple-minded aunt appeared to remain in the dark about an affair which was plainly apparent to him, had been so a year ago. Probably by now Thérèse had completely lost her head over the casual Arthur, who on his side would never lose his head over any woman.
"Odd, that boy's success with women," he reflected a moment later as he turned on his bath. "He makes no effort whatever, yet they all pursue him. Since he was a youngster he has always had some woman hanging around his neck, usually a rich one."
Here a sudden thought came to him.
"By George! I wonder if Thérèse has been taking care of him all this time? Funny not to think of it before. I suppose it never occurred to me such a thing could happen where the old man's money was concerned, and yet he is old, and—damn it all, that would account for her consuming rage when he put her on short commons. I'd give something to know if that baccarat story is true."
The speculation engrossed him until the bath was full; then, lying in the warm water, he ceased to concern himself with his stepmother's affairs and gave himself up to sheer exultation at the prospect of the month of idleness before him. Since October he had worked with every atom of brain energy he possessed; now he could revel in his holiday, knowing he had earned it. He thought of tennis, of motoring to Monte Carlo, of dining and dancing afterwards, provided he could find a girl he liked. Somehow, as this idea occurred to him, he had a mental "flash-back" of the little nurse, more particularly of her slender legs and ankles as she had hurried along the passage that morning. There was a girl, now, who looked as if she knew how to enjoy things. Why should not he ask her to come out with him one evening to sample a little of the night-life of Cannes? He felt that with her as a companion the usual round would have twice its savour.
Esther came out of Sir Charles's room just as Captain Holliday issued from the adjoining apartment, with the result that they met face to face in the hall. She was about to pass after a formal greeting, but he, bestowing on her a perfunctory salutation, suddenly came a step nearer and stared at her so pointedly that she stopped, thinking he must have something to say.
"So you've taken on this job, have you?" he remarked tentatively, his eyes boring into hers. "You know, I've never been satisfied with that story of yours about my seeing you—where was it you said?—at the Carlton."
"I said I saw you there. Perhaps it wasn't where you saw me," she replied simply.
"Anyhow, it's not the occasion I mean. I've seen you somewhere else, in different circumstances … not that it matters a damn, but…"