He looked at me with a gleam of something in his eyes which puzzled me. It was half kindly, half humorous. Then in an instant I understood. The girl had told him. Something decided had happened then between them. Perhaps she had told him everything.
“I believe,” he answered, “that Miss Berdenstein has gone to London. Don’t you feel that you owe me a very humble plea for forgiveness?”
I looked at him cautiously.
“Why?”
His lips relaxed a little. He was half smiling.
“Did you not make a deliberate plot against me in conjunction with Miss Berdenstein?”
“I am not sure that I understand you,” I answered. “I certainly did not originate any plot against you.”
“Nay, but you fell in with it. I know all about it, so you may just as well confess. Miss Berdenstein was to leave off making inconvenient inquiries about Philip Maltabar, and you were to be as rude to me as you could. Wasn’t that something like the arrangement? You see I know all about it. I have had the benefit of a full confession.”
“If you know,” I remarked, “you do not need to ask me.”
“That is quite true,” he answered, opening a gate and motioning me to precede him. “But at the same time I thought that it would be rather—well, piquant to hear the details from you.”