Before he had finished speaking he saw a look on Lady Jennings’ face which made him glance behind him, and he saw that Rachel herself had come in quietly while they were talking. It was clear that she had heard his words and understood them, and her pale face, which was very grave, lighted up a little.
She shook hands with him, and exerted herself to be lively and entertaining, and to dispel that slight feeling of resentment towards her which she knew that her erratic ways had caused her protectress to feel.
They went downstairs together, and she found an opportunity to ask him what he had said in answer to the questions about the day before, which she knew Lady Jennings must have put. She seemed satisfied and even grateful when he told her, and from that moment her spirits rose, so that she was the life and soul of the little party at luncheon.
When they rose from the table they all drifted towards the window, where Lady Jennings kept her little birds in a large aviary cage. Rachel was still very gay, and Lady Jennings’ resentment had softened under the influence of the girl’s exertions to amuse her.
Miss Davison was laughing and talking brightly when Gerard suddenly perceived a strange change in her, the brightness dying out of her eyes and the color out of her lips.
Glancing out of the window in search of the cause, Gerard saw that a gentleman of the middle height, erect and of military appearance, with a snow-white mustache, was passing slowly, and looking up at the window as he did so; and he knew it was the visitor to Lilian who would not give his name.
CHAPTER XI
Gerard glanced at Rachel, but she was too much occupied with her own thoughts, as she stealthily watched the retreating figure of the erect, middle-aged gentleman with the snow-white mustache, to pay any attention to him, or to remark the shrewdness with which his eye followed the direction of hers.
The fact was that one glance at the stranger outside on the pavement, and then another at Rachel, had been enough to assure Gerard that he had at last found the key to the mystery which surrounded the actions of Miss Davison.
True, it was a key which he could not yet make use of, but he was none the less confident that he now had it in his hands.