“I’ll say yes on one condition—and gladly,” she replied, with an odd, pale little smile, “that you tell me where you’re going this morning. I know it must seem horrid in me to ask, but—but—oh, Ivor, it isn’t horrid, really. You wouldn’t think it horrid if you could understand.”
“I’m going to Paris,” I answered, beginning to feel as if I had a cold potato where my heart ought to be. “I am obliged to go, on business.”
“You didn’t say anything about Paris in your letter this morning, when you told me you couldn’t come to the Duchess’s,” said Di, looking like a beautiful, unhappy child, her eyes big and appealing, her mouth proud. “You only mentioned ‘an urgent engagement which you’d forgotten.’”
“I thought that would be enough to explain, in a hurry,” I told her, lamely.
“So it was—so it would have been,” she faltered, “if it hadn’t been for—what we said last night about—Paris. And then—I can’t explain to you, Ivor, any more than it seems you can to me. But I did hear you meant to go there, and—after our talk, I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t come to the station to find you; I came because I was perfectly sure I wouldn’t find you, and wanted to prove that I hadn’t found you. Yet—you’re here.”
“And, though I am here, you will trust me just the same,” I said, as firmly as I could.
“Of course. I’ll trust you, if—”
“If what?”
“If you’ll tell me just one little, tiny thing: that you’re not going to see Maxine de Renzie.”
“I may see her,” I admitted.