“I dare say you feel a little anxious at such an extraordinarily sudden departure,” he suggested amiably. “Bolting off in the middle of the night was sudden, if he did not explain himself.”
“He had no time to explain,” she answered.
“That makes it appear all the more sudden. But no doubt he left you a message. I saw you were reading a note when I joined you on the terrace.”
Lightly casual as he chose to make the words sound, they were an audacity he would have known better than to allow himself with any one but a timid early-Victorian spinster whose politeness was hypersensitive in its quality.
“He particularly desired that I should not be anxious,” she said. “He is always considerate.”
“He would, of course, have explained everything if he had not been so hurried?”
“Of course, if it had been necessary,” answered Miss Alicia, nervously sipping her tea.
“Naturally,” said Captain Palliser. “His note no doubt mentioned that he went away on business connected with his friend Mr. Strangeways?”
There was no question of the fact that she was startled.
“He had not time enough,” she said. “He could only write a few lines. Mr. Strangeways?”