Miss Eden shut it after him, and he went back into St Luke’s, with just one glance behind which showed him only the closed door and no face at the window, in a state of rage and irritation of the keenest possible kind.
To think that he should have made such a fool of himself as to take this journey, at the risk of giving grievous offence by asking for a second holiday, just to see a disingenuous coquette who led him on only to deceive him. For that she knew all about the trick played upon him and his friends by Nini he felt convinced. Even her light way of passing over the subject was confirmation of that fact.
He wished he had not come. He was no nearer to the truth about the child than he had been before. While his interview with Miss Eden had only served to strengthen the impression she had previously made upon him, at the same time it for the first time raised in him doubts of her frankness.
Why did she make a mystery of the incident of the child? Did she think him incapable of keeping a secret? or did she think that he would resent being called upon to have any share in the safekeeping of the child who was his uncle’s heir?
In spite of the fact that he had seen another child at the Vazons’ cottage, Bayre still thought that the hero of the basket was his infant cousin. But in the face of Miss Eden’s rather haughty silence upon this point he dared not even ask the question. He was so angry and hurt, without quite knowing why, that he told himself he should take no more trouble over the matter, but should go back to London and wait for further developments, leaving Miss Eden to get out of her own difficulties as she might, and his uncle to be dealt with by Monsieur Blaise, who would no doubt in the end make some inquiries and discover the mystery, whatever it might be, that was connected with the château of Creux.
He felt some self-reproach down in the bottom of his heart at the idea of leaving it to a stranger to unearth a family secret. But, after all, he told himself, it was no affair of his, and the man whom old Mr Bayre had chosen for a sort of son-in-law had more reason for interference in the family affairs than a blood-relation who had been kept at arm’s-length.
In this mood he reached St Luke’s and passed an uneasy evening. But with a bright morning came softer thoughts and feelings, so that when he took his early walk, after his roll and coffee, he instinctively went up to the New Town and struck inland in the direction of Madame Portelet’s cottage.
By the luckiest accident in the world—in spite of his stoical resolve to have no more to do with her this was how he described it to himself—he met Miss Eden before he came in sight of the humble dwelling where she had found a temporary refuge.
She blushed very prettily at sight of him, and this fact gave him some secret satisfaction, to counterbalance the remembrance of her cool dismissal of the previous afternoon. But she took care to minimise the effect of this by raising her eyebrows and saying,—
“Then you haven’t gone back yet, Mr Bayre?”