The next thing he did was to ask, naïvely, if that Miss Lethbridge was the Miss Lethbridge—the ward of Sir Lionel Pendragon, so much talked of in the papers just now? Proud that her sister's school had moulded a celebrity, Mademoiselle chatted away about Ellaline, saying what a dear child she was, how sorry Madame was to part from her, and how Madame de Blanchemain, Ellaline's chère marraine, at St. Cloud, must be missing her mignonne at this very moment.
It goes without saying that Mr. Dick's next step took him at a single stride to St. Cloud. He didn't call on Madame de Blanchemain, not wishing to stir up a tempest in a teapot, but simply pryed and peered, and did all sorts of sneaky things, only excusable in a professional detective, who must (or thinks he must) live.
He found out about Madame de Blanchemain's nephew, Ellaline's Honoré, and put this and that together, until he'd patched up the theory of a love affair. But further he dared not go, on that track, so he pranced back to Versailles, and found out things about Audrie Brendon.
The way he did that was through noticing the name of the Versailles photographer who took the group in the garden. Dick called on him, and said he wanted a copy of the picture, because his "cousin" was in it. The man had several on hand, as parents occasionally wrote for them, and when Dick got his he inquired who I was. The obliging photographer, perhaps scenting a romance, told him I lived in the Rue Chapeau de Marie Antoinette with my mother. Then the wretch actually had the impudence to describe to me a visit he paid our apartment, ringing at the door, and asking dear Philomene for Madame Brendon!
In five minutes, he had heard all our family affairs, as far as that dear, simple, talkative soul could tell him. That you were in Switzerland, and I had gone to England to visit a friend.
I sat and listened to the end of the story, saying never a word, though I was in one of the moods which make me a person that nobody but myself could stand for a moment. I should simply have smiled if wild horses had come along to tear him in two.
"So you see," said he, at last, when I didn't speak, "I'm in the game with you."
"It isn't my game," said I.
"You're playing it," said he.
"Because I have to," said I.