“You’ve got to,” said Jack firmly, already playing the heavy husband. “This is one time when you’ll have to put on some Yankee pep. Your aunt knows I’m here, or at least that I was here for over a week.”
“What!” gasped Serena, and even Cynthia was astonished.
“Yes, she saw me one evening when I was strolling about the streets here, that was, let’s see, about five days ago.”
The night Serena talked to me on the bridge, thought Cynthia ... that’s so, he passed the café where the lights were so bright.
“So a couple of days later she hunted me up at the hotel. She said she had no intention of my seeing her niece and of making her unhappy all over again, and that Serena’s not writing was proof enough that she was through caring for me. That sort of set me thinking, for how could she be sure that Serena wasn’t really writing to me unless she herself was doing something about it.”
“But I did write Jack, two letters every week,” protested the indignant Serena.
“Yes, I know, honey child, but your aunt was very careful that they didn’t get mailed, or that you didn’t get mine either. So I let her come down to the station to see me off. She was most gracious, having won her point. She saw me buy a ticket for Marseilles and get on the express, but she didn’t know that it stops again about a half hour beyond here, and that I got off there and returned by the next train. I’ve been very careful ever since to keep out of sight as much as possible, but I’d seen you two together so when I got Miss Wanstead’s note I suspected that she had arranged something.”
“Oh Jack, and I never guessed you were in Carcassonne all this time.”
For a long moment then they forgot all about Cynthia till in protest that young lady remarked. “Hadn’t we better get on with those plans of yours?”
So for fifteen more minutes plans were made, rejected, and reaccepted, till Cynthia looking up suddenly exclaimed, “And here comes your aunt!”