"Say that in ze panic your belt worked loose, you had to dive into ze water. When you were dragged into ze lifeboat the belt was gone, do you understand?"
"Yes—but will they believe it?"
"They must believe it. There'll be an awful fuss, of course, but they'll get over it. No suspicion can attach to you."
"He's coming to-night—this man Parker?"
"Yes, to-night. He'll be here for dinner. He——"
Before the valet could complete the sentence there was a knock on the door and Helen outside called out:
"May I come in?"
Instantly the valet jumped up and assumed once more his deferential demeanor. The gambler hurriedly shut the bureau drawers and put on the blue spectacles.
The door opened and Helen entered.
Alert as the Frenchman was, he was not quick enough to quite conceal from the wife that his present obsequious manner had been suddenly assumed for her benefit directly she had entered the room. She had overheard voices, as she reached the landing, and the abrupt manner in which these sounds had ceased was not entirely natural. It had also seemed to her that the valet's tone had had a ring of familiarity about it which she had never known it to have before. Could it be possible that they were discussing matters which were to be kept from her? If so, her husband already had secrets in which not she but his valet shared. She recalled Keralio's cynical smile, as he had whispered: "Husbands only tell their wives half." Perhaps he had spoken the truth. Perhaps at this very moment she was degraded, insulted in her womanhood by a man who was secretly unloyal to her. The very thought went through her like a knife-thrust. All her life, every hour she had devoted to her husband. Even now she did not like to even harbor a shade of distrust, but his strange behavior since his return, this earnest conversation behind closed doors with a menial she despised and distrusted—all this could not but add to her anxiety. Calmly, she asked: