A faint smile passed over her face, one of those flitting, quickly fading ripples of gentle merriment which were characteristic of her.
“Why,” she said, “how many more people are you going to marry me to, Mr. Buckland? There was Denver Van Santen—and now—”
He interrupted her with rash eagerness.
“Denver Van Santen! No. Even if you could care for a card-sharper, which I own might be possible, you could not, I’m sure, care for a murderer!”
Miss Davison, who was leaning back carelessly in her chair, sat up, looking deadly pale. With a commanding air, she made him sit down beside her.
“What do you mean?” she asked, fixing him with a gaze which seemed to penetrate to his very soul. It was evident that, however she might try to hide the fact, she was thrown by his words into a state of keenest tension.
His jealousy grew as he watched the change in her. Did she really care for this man, then, and was the tie which bound her to Cecil Jones one of business interests only?
“I mean,” said he, lowering his voice, so that no one else should hear a whisper of the momentous words he had to utter, “that Denver Van Santen was the cause of the accident to Sir William’s car last week, and that he shadowed us with a revolver, with what object, unless he meant to rid himself of a person whom he looked upon as dangerous, I can’t imagine.”
Miss Davison tried to laugh, but that resource she had used too often that afternoon and her voice sounded hard and her mirth artificial.
“How absurd!” she cried. “Can anything be more preposterous than to accuse a person on such flimsy grounds? for of course you only suppose that you saw Denver, and Sir William only supposes it also.”