“Yes,” she assented, and with unusual and remarkable reticence she pursued the subject no further.
George’s masculine wits failed to see more in this circumstance than respect for his prejudice against her interesting herself in such themes. She had calmed down very suddenly, he thought, from her outburst of violent indignation against the Colonel. No one could have imagined, to see her now trifling first with a scent-bottle and then with a fan, that only half an hour had passed since she learnt, in a startling manner, a secret concerning her parentage momentous enough to set the most volatile creature thinking. And then it occurred to him that this secret, so new to him, might not be altogether new to her. Candour is not an Oriental virtue, and experience had already shown him that Nouna was by nature secretive, and much more likely to keep her own counsel even in hours of amorous confidence than he or any other babbling foolish Samson of a male lover. He recalled certain confidential looks and tones he had observed between her and the lawyer, Mr. Smith, on her wedding-day; he recollected various injunctions from Madame di Valdestillas that Nouna should in all things pertaining to the marriage put herself without question into the old solicitor’s hands. The result of these musings was that George, determined by yet another flash of remembrance, marked down for his second step in this matter a visit to the church where he was married, and an inspection of the register.
The first step he proposed for himself was to question Sundran. It would depend, he knew, upon her own dull and dogged views of what was her mistress’s interest whether she would condescend to open her lips to him either for truth or falsehood. But he thought he might be able to prove to her by the evidence of his unquestionable devotion that he could have no aim but her mistress’s happiness, and if this could once be made clear to the woman, Lord Florencecourt’s careful avoidance of her was enough to show that she could make important revelations.
But George was met on the very threshold of his investigations by an undreamt-of difficulty. When the train arrived at Liverpool Street he put Nouna at once into a cab, and went back to the train to fetch Sundran, who had not yet found her way to her mistress. But she had disappeared. In vain he examined every compartment in turn, and scanned the crowd on the platform. Inquiries of the porter at last elicited that a dark-skinned woman in white had sprung out of a compartment before the train stopped, and driven off at once in a cab. George returned to his wife, saying simply that Sundran had gone off before them, but as the inspector at the gate of the station took the number of their cab, George called to the driver to stop, and asked the official if he had noticed a black woman pass out, adding that she was his wife’s maid, knew very little English, and he was afraid she might have made a mistake with the address.
“I saw her, sir. I think the number of the cab was fifty-seven,” said the man, referring to his list.
George thanked him, and the cab drove off. Nouna looked at her husband in astonishment.
“She won’t make a mistake, George. Sundran is not so silly.”
“I don’t think she is. But I want to find out where she’s gone.”
“Then you think she’s run away! Why should she? Where would she go?” asked Nouna breathlessly.
“Well, well, we don’t know yet whether she’s gone at all.”