"Thank you for the information. I hope Mr. Harrowby has appreciated your maternal care."
"Well, he did and he didn't, madam. Just when I thought he was going to buck up he—he cleared out, and I thought he must be dead. Now, I find that—"
"That he's alive. If you had come to me I could have told you that—that clearing out was his specialty. You might say he had a genius for it, if you weren't compelled to call it by another name."
I took a long stride toward her.
"Vio, do you mean anything by that?"
"What should I mean but—but the fact? You're a mystery to me, Billy, just as you've evidently been to—to this young lady. At the very minute when we hope, as she so picturesquely puts it, that you're going to buck up, you—you clear out. You must have a marvelous eye for your opportunities in that respect. That's why I say it is like genius. No one who didn't have a genius for clearing out, still to call it that, could so neatly have seen his chance at Bourg-la-Comtesse!"
"Vio!"
I don't know what I was about to do, because with my own shout ringing in my ears I became aware that Lydia had caught me by the arm.
"Oh, kid, please don't!"
"Yes; let him." Vio's face was strained upward toward me, but otherwise she hadn't moved. "Men who run away from other men are always quick to strike women."