Something occurred to put an end to their conversation, and it was not resumed before Paul’s departure with Darco for London. When it came to the point Annette flatly refused to go to England. She averred that she was not strong enough to travel, that she was altogether better and happier where she was than she hoped to be elsewhere.
‘You will be back in a month’s time,’ she urged. ‘You will be busy all the while you are away. The theatre will claim you day and night, and I should be moping in some great hotel without a soul to speak to. I am quite at home amongst the people here, and they are used to me and to my ways.’
Paul urged Laurent’s suggestion upon her, and she received it with an unexpected anger.
‘What? A companion? And may I ask you why?’
‘For no other earthly reason than that you should have a friend at hand—somebody who might on occasion be useful to you.’
‘Oh no,’ said Annette, tossing her head, and then looking askance at him, with half-veiled eyes: ‘you would like to have me watched and spied upon, and to have a report of my conduct sent to you, as if I were a prisoner or a maniac.’
‘My dear child,’ said Paul, in sheer amazement, ‘what extraordinary dream is this? What has put so strange a fancy in your mind?’
‘Tell me,’ cried Annette, suddenly whirling round upon him, ‘what is it you suspect? What intrigue? What plot? What secret?’
‘Come, come,’ he said, ‘there is no plot—no secret But you know that you are not quite yourself of late, and it is not right or kind to leave you here in your present delicate health without some responsible person to look after you.’
‘Has M. Laurent been poisoning your mind against me?’ she demanded, with a curious slowness. She advanced a foot as she spoke, and moved forward towards him with a something between fear and anger in her eyes.