“You are positively eloquent to-night—both of you,” she declared. “But, you see, appearances are very much against me. He knew my name, and also that I had been living in Paris, and a man doesn’t risk claiming a girl for his wife, as a rule, for nothing. He was painfully in earnest, too. I think you will find that his story will be believed, whatever I say; and in any case, if he is going to stay on here, I shall have to go away.”
“Don’t say that,” Sydney begged. “We will see that he never annoys you.”
Anna shook her head.
“He is evidently a friend of Mrs. White’s,” she said, “and if he is going to persist in this delusion, we cannot both remain here. I’d rather not go,” she added. “This is much the cheapest place I know of where things are moderately clean, and I should hate rooms all by myself. Dear me, what a nuisance it is to have a pseudo husband shot down upon one from the skies.”
“And such a beast of a one,” Sydney remarked vigorously.
Brendon looked across the room at her thoughtfully.
“I wonder,” he said, “is there anything we could do to help you to get rid of him?”
“Can you think of anything?” Anna answered. “I can’t! He appears to be a most immovable person.”
Brendon hesitated for a moment. He was a little embarrassed.
“There ought to be some means of getting at him,” he said. “The fellow seems to know your name, Miss Pellissier, and that you have lived in Paris. Might we ask you if you have ever seen him, if you knew him at all before this evening?”