Monsieur Daunay spoke with a profound feeling, a profound sincerity that the emotional tremor of his voice, the emotional tears in his eyes, only made the more characteristic and touching to Damier. He got up and grasped the Frenchman’s hand in silence.
A knock at the door broke upon this compact of sympathy; a garçon brought a card to Damier and said that the lady waited for him in the salon below. The card was Lady Surfex’s, and on it was written:
Must see you at once, on most important matter concerning Madame V.
“Wait for me here,” Damier said to Monsieur Daunay. “This may concern you as well as me.”
He found Lady Surfex in the drearily gaudy salon, her face ominous of ill tidings.
“My dear Eustace,” she said,—they were alone, yet her voice was discreetly low,—“a horrid thing has happened—or is going to. I thought it best to come to you at once. Claire Vicaud runs away to-night with Lord Epsil.”
And, as he stared at her in stricken silence:
“I found it out by chance. I was at Mrs. Wallingham’s. They were there—Mademoiselle Vicaud and Lord Epsil. I watched them, indeed, with some uneasiness, as they sat, with ostentatious retirement, in a dim corner. I saw them go out together. Do you know, Eustace, my distrust of that girl and of that man—in justice to her, I must say it—was so great that I really was on the point of following them—asking her to let me drive her home; but I hesitated, people I knew came in, I had to speak to them, and so some time went by. Then, about half an hour after they were gone, Mrs. Wallingham came to me and whispered that a maid—a discreet English person who was dispensing tea in the dining-room—had overheard Lord Epsil saying to Mademoiselle Vicaud that they would take the night train to Dinard, and that his yacht was there. The woman came at once to her mistress. And now, Eustace, what can be done to save her?” They both knew to whom the pronoun referred; a conventional saving of Claire had significance only in reference to her mother.
Damier was steadying his thoughts.
“The night train.” He looked at his watch. “There is time,” he said.