For a single moment her eyes seemed to have caught something of that sympathetic light with which he was regarding her. Then she looked away.
“Was it my mashie shots you were worrying about?” she asked.
“It was not,” he replied simply. “It was you—you yourself.”
She laughed, not altogether naturally.
“How flattering!” she murmured. “By-the-by, you are rather a downright person, aren’t you, Mr. Hamel?”
“So much so,” he admitted, “that I am going to tell you one or two things now. I am going to be very frank indeed.”
She sat suddenly quite still. Her face was turned from him, but for the first time since he had known her there was a slight undertone of colour in her cheeks.
“A week ago,” he said, “I hadn’t the faintest idea of coming into Norfolk. I knew about this little shanty of my father’s, but I had forgotten all about it. I came as the result of a conversation I had with a friend who is in the Foreign Office.”
She looked at him with startled eyes.
“What do you mean?” she asked quickly. “You are Mr. Hamel, aren’t you?”