"Olga is home, too?" he interrupted, steadying himself.
She nodded quickly and went on. "Olga says that Hermia disappeared from Paris for over a week and no one knew where she was. Trevvy was crazy with anxiety. But she came back one night in an old gray coat and hat with a bundle—the shabbiest thing imaginable, looking like a tramp. Trevvy was in the hotel and saw her. But they patched things up somehow."
"Did Madame Tcherny learn where she had been?"
"Oh, no," she laughed. "You see Olga was too busy with her own affairs. She has a Frenchman in tow this season—she's brought him here with her—florid, blonde, curled and monocled, the Marquis de Folligny—"
"Pierre de Folligny!"
"You know him?"
"Yes—er—slightly."
She had babbled her gossip so lightly and rapidly that this last piece of information had not given him the start its significance deserved. But its import grew.
"It's an affair of long standing, isn't it?" she asked him.
"I—I don't know, I'm sure," he muttered, his brow clouding.