“If you speak any louder,” she said, with some urgency of manner, “you’ll be ‘hopelessly compromised socially,’ as Mrs. Alderman McGinnis and the Duchess of Gwythyl-Corners say”—she directed my glance, by one of her own, through the open door to Mr. Percy—“because HE’LL hear you and know that the sketch-book was only a shallow pretext of mine to see you. Do be a little manfully self-contained, or you’ll get us talked about! And as for ‘this time of night,’ I believe it’s almost half past nine.”
“Does Miss Ward know—”
“Do you think it likely? One of the most convenient things about a chateau is the number of ways to get out of it without being seen. I had a choice of eight. So I ‘suffered fearfully from neuralgia,’ dined in my own room, and sped through the woods to my honest forester.” She nodded brightly. “That’s YOU!”
“You weren’t afraid to come through the woods alone?” I asked, uncomfortably conscious that her gaiety met a dull response from me.
“No.”
“But if Miss Ward finds that you’re not at the chateau—”
“She won’t; she thinks I’m asleep. She brought me up a sleeping-powder herself.”
“She thinks you took it?”
“She KNOWS I did,” said Miss Elliott. “I’m full of it! And that will be the reason—if you notice that I’m particularly nervous or excited.”
“You seem all of that,” I said, looking at her eyes, which were very wide and very brilliant. “However, I believe you always do.”