"Here comes Dierdre back with Mrs. Beckett so I won't worry you to guess. I've got a message from the Wandering Jew. Do you want it, or don't you?"
CHAPTER XXVIII
If Julian had suddenly popped down an apple on the top of my head, à la Gessler and the son of William Tell, and thereupon proceeded to shoot it off, I could have been no more amazed. For once he outflanked me, caught me completely off my guard! I saw by the impish gleam in his eye how delighted he was with himself.
"Yes or no, please; quick!" he fired the next volley as I stood speechless.
"Yes!" I gasped. "I do want the message—if it's for me. But why should he send word through you?"
"He didn't. I caught it as I might catch a homing carrier-pigeon. You know, my motto is 'All's fair in love and war.' In my case, both exist—your fault! Besides, what I did was for your good."
"What did you do—what did you dare to do?"
"Dare!" Puck mimicked my foolish fury. "'Dare' is such a melodramatic word from you to me. I can't tell you now what I did, or the message—no time. But I'm in as much of a hurry as you are. When can I see you alone?"
I hesitated, because it would be like him to cheat me with some trick, and chuckle at my rage. I couldn't see how a message from Paul Herter for me had reached Julian O'Farrell, unless he'd intercepted a letter. It seemed far more likely that Puck was romancing, yet I felt in my bones and heart and solar plexus that he wasn't! I simply had to know—and in a flurry, before Mother Beckett and Dierdre were upon us, I said, "This afternoon, at three, when Mrs. Beckett is having her nap. I'll meet you in the garden of the hotel."