“She mentioned only once. Of course she’d often heard both George and me speak of you.”

“But how did she know it was I and where I was staying?”

“Oh, that?” Her smile changed to a laugh. “Your maitre d’hotel told Ferret, a gardener at Quesnay, that you were at the inn.”

“He did!”

“Oh, but you mustn’t be angry with him; he made it quite all right.”

“How did he do that?” I asked, trying to speak calmly, though there was that in my mind which might have blanched the parchment cheek of a grand inquisitor.

“He told Ferret that you were very anxious not to have it known—”

“You call that making it all right?”

“For himself, I mean. He asked Ferret not to mention who it was that told him.”

“The rascal!” I cried. “The treacherous, brazen—”