"Does your reticence include the interchange of messages between Miss Joyce and Mr. Fairchild?"
She looked at him with a quick accession of interest. "No," was her reply. "Why should you ask that?"
He waved the question to one side. "It's immaterial. Possibly there has been no such interchange.... There is but one more question, Mrs. Westbrook. While you were returning from Mrs. Farquier's last night, why did you peer so closely into the darkness? Whom were you expecting to see?"
A faint flicker of wonder penetrated the mask of her countenance, but quickly disappeared.
"I suppose all this is necessary?"
"It is, indeed."
"Well, I expected to see one of two young men."
"Ah! Then the one you did see—the fact of its being Mr. Lynden—removed a cause of worry?"
"You are correct. I could not consider him seriously in any light."
That was all. As she arose, she inclined her head slightly. "Joyce will see you here," she said.