“No.”
“It was Madame Ghita. And this is the road to Nice.”
“What of it?”
“But it is at Nice the dinner is to take place!” cried the countess. “Surely you are not so stupid as you seem!”
Selden could only look at her. And suddenly the car jerked to a stop.
“We have arrived,” she said. “Till to-night—and thank you for a delightful afternoon!”
And she ran quickly up the steps into the hotel.
CHAPTER IX
A KING’S APOLOGIA
SELDEN dressed for dinner that evening with the same sense of nervous tension that he used to feel in the old days when tumbling out of bed and hustling into his clothes in the middle of the night to witness the jump-off of a big offensive. He had found a note from the baron awaiting him, naming 8:30 as the hour and the Villa Gloria on the Promenade des Anglais as the place, and expressing great pleasure that Selden was to be among the guests. Its perfect wording awakened in Selden fresh admiration for the supreme finish of the old diplomat, who was never at fault for the right word, the right look, the right gesture.
And presently, alone in a compartment of the express which hurtled through innumerable tunnels towards Nice, he had settled himself in a corner and endeavoured to draw such deductions as were possible from his afternoon’s conversation with the countess, and to decide how much of it was grist for his mill.