"You fancied I didn't like to talk about the Monarchic?"
"Well, when the Countess spoke of it, you looked—cross."
"I was cross. But only with the way she spoke—as if she and I had come over together because we were pals. That's all. Though I've every cause to hate the memory of that trip! When did you remember what you had read in the newspapers?"
"Only this evening."
"I thought so! At dinner. I saw a look come over your face."
"I didn't know you noticed me."
"I'm always noticing you. And I was proud of you to-night. Well! You remembered——"
"About a man on board being robbed, and a lady—an 'amateur clairvoyante,' seeing things in a crystal. I thought it must have been the Countess de Santiago."
"It was, though her name was kept out of the papers by her request. She's sensitive about the clairvoyance stuff: afraid people may consider her a professional, and look down on her from patronizing social heights. Of course, I suppose it's nonsense about seeing things in a glass ball, but I believe she does contrive to take it seriously, for she seems in earnest. She did tell people on board ship things about themselves—true things, they said; and they ought to know!
"As for the jewel affair," he added, "nobody could be sure if there was anything in her 'visions', but people thought them extraordinary—even the captain, a hard-headed old chap. You see, a yacht had been sighted the evening before the robbery while the passengers were at dinner. It might have kept near, with lights out, for the Monarchic is one of the huge, slow-going giants, and the yacht might have been a regular little greyhound. It seems she didn't answer signals. The captain hadn't thought much of that, because there was a slight fog and she could have missed them. But it came back to him afterward, and seemed to bear out the Countess's rigmarole.