I stepped forward to look at it, but, as if divining my purpose, Adelaide Fortress touched the spring and the aperture was hidden.
“That photograph,” she repeated, coldly, “is the likeness of an old and dear friend of mine who is dead. I do not feel called upon to tell you his name. It was not Maltabar.”
“I do not believe you,” she said, steadily. “I believe that you are all in a conspiracy against me. I am sorry I ever told you my story. I am sorry I ever sat down under your roof. I believe that Philip Maltabar lives and that he is not far away. We shall see!”
She moved to the door. Mr. Deville stood there ready to open it. She looked up at him—as a woman can look sometimes.
“You at least are not against me,” she murmured. “Say that you are not! Say that you will be my friend once more!”
He bent down and said something to her very quietly, which we did not hear, and when she left the room he followed her. We heard the hall door slam. Through the window we could see them walking down the gravel path side by side. She was talking eagerly, flashing quick little glances up at him, and her fingers lay upon his coat sleeve. He was listening gravely with downcast head.
Adelaide Fortress looked from them to me with a peculiar smile. What she said seemed a little irrelevant.
“How she will bore him!”
“Oh! I don’t know,” I answered, with an irritation whose virulence surprised me. “Men like that sort of thing.”
“Not Mr. Deville,” she said. “He will hate it.”