“Oh, they would naturally conclude we should come on by a later train as we didn’t turn up till this one started,” said Bruce Wylie, “in fact I told the Major we should do that if by any ill fortune we were too late. Who could have guessed that there were no trains later than this?”
“You looked out the trains yourself yesterday,” said Evereld, “I should have thought you would have noticed.”
She felt intensely irritated, it was one of those times when a traveller’s temper is put to the test.
Bruce Wylie did not mend matters by his rather stumbling apology. She could not have explained her feeling, but somehow at that moment she felt that she could no longer put confidence in him.
“Well, I wouldn’t have had such a thing happen for the world,” he said. “It is all my fault, and I’m extremely sorry. The only thing to be done is to go back to the Hotel Gorge du Trient. We shall be in time for dinner, I daresay. To the Hotel, driver!”
“Wait,” said Evereld quietly. “I must first send a telegram to Lady Mactavish explaining things.”
“Quite right, of course. I ought to have thought of it. What a sensible little woman you are, Evereld.”
She neither smiled nor responded in any way. A few hours before the episode would have troubled her very little, but to be stranded in this place with the man she had just refused was a situation she disliked very much. Behind it all, too, there lurked a vague feeling that she had been entrapped into the drive, that perhaps even Janet had guessed what Mr. Wylie meant to say during the course of this ill-fated expedition.
To do him justice, Bruce Wylie took good care to set her perfectly at her ease directly they arrived at the hotel, himself saw the manageress and explained things to her, handing over Evereld to her kindly care, and promising to meet her in the salon.
The Swiss manageress gave her a pleasant room, and lent her all that she needed, and when she went down to the salon a delightful surprise awaited her.