As they pressed back, however, Paquita pressed forward until she was standing beside me.
“Is—Mr. Maddox—out there?” she asked, pointing out at the Sybarite anxiously.
“Why?” I demanded, hoping in her anxiety to catch her off guard.
She shot a quick glance at me. There was no denying that the woman was clever and quick of perception.
“Oh, I just wondered,” she murmured. “I wanted to see him, so much—that is all. And it’s very urgent.”
She glanced about, as though hoping to discover some means of communicating with the yacht, even of getting out to it. But there did not seem to be any offered.
I determined to watch her, and for that reason did not insist that she get back as far as the rest of the crowd. All the time I saw that she was looking constantly out at the Sybarite. Did she know something about Shelby Maddox that we did not know? I wondered if, indeed, there might be some valid reason why she should get out there. What did she suspect?
Again she came forward, inquiring whether there was not some way of communicating with the Sybarite, and again, when I tried to question her, she refused to give me any satisfaction. However, I could not help noticing that in spite of the cold manner in which Shelby had treated her, she seemed now to be actuated more by the most intense fear for him than by any malice against him.
What it meant I had the greatest curiosity to know, especially when I noticed that Paquita was glancing nervously about as though in great fear that some one might be present and see her. Nor did she seem to be deterred from showing her feelings by the fact that she knew that I, Kennedy’s closest friend, was watching and would undoubtedly report to him. It was as though she had abandoned discretion and cast fear to the winds.
As the minutes passed and nothing happened, Paquita became a trifle calmer and managed to take refuge in the crowd.