"If?" he enunciated slowly. "If?"
Despard threw the Frenchman a grateful glance.
"That's it," he agreed. "His name is Aylmer. So far she has not got beyond that fact, my friend."
Aylmer looked round at them both. There was something calculating in the way in which he surveyed the two, as if they were factors in a situation which had hitherto eluded him, but which was now beginning to take definite shape. And his lips had set one upon the other in a rigid line. His chin seemed to have attained incongruous squareness beneath the suave droop of his moustache.
"She's got to believe in me!" he announced grimly. "I won't let her be unworthy of herself."
And the other two noticed that as he said it he nodded to himself two or three times decidedly. He drew himself up; unconsciously his carriage grew stiffer. It was as if he had mapped out and settled a matter definitely. He began to talk and laugh naturally, and on other subjects. And if any allusion to the day's adventure outcropped into the conversation he did not avoid it, but simply passed it by without comment. He had taken his line. The incident, apart from his resolution, was closed.
As the three strolled up to the camp a man rose from the group which sat in the shadow of the awning at the door of the largest tent and came out to meet them. He was tall, white-haired, aquiline of feature. And his pervading characteristic seemed to be gravity. His figure and face alike were unbending.
He made them a studied little bow.
"My daughter tells me, Captain Aylmer," he said, "that I have to thank you for your prompt action on behalf of my grandson. You saved him from a situation of grave peril."