Presently it further occurred to me that the satellite's back seemed strangely familiar. 'I have seen that man somewhere, Elsie,' I whispered, putting aside the wisps of hair that blew about my face.
'So have I, dear,' Elsie answered, with a slight shudder. And I was instinctively aware that I too disliked him.
As Elsie spoke, the man turned, and strolled slowly past us, with that ineffable insolence which is the other side of the flunkey's insufferable self-abasement. He cast a glance at us as he went by, a withering glance of brazen effrontery. We knew him now, of course: it was that variable star, our old acquaintance, Mr. Higginson the courier.
He was here as himself this time; no longer the count or the mysterious faith-healer. The diplomat hid his rays under the garb of the man-servant.
'Depend upon it, Elsie,' I cried, clutching her arm with a vague sense of fear, 'this man means mischief. There is danger ahead. When a creature of Higginson's sort, who has risen to be a count and a fashionable physician, descends again to be a courier, you may rest assured it is because he has something to gain by it. He has some deep scheme afloat. And we are part of it.'
'His master looks weak enough and silly enough for anything,' Elsie answered, eyeing the suspected lordling. 'I should think he is just the sort of man such a wily rogue would naturally fasten upon.'
'When a wily rogue gets hold of a weak fool, who is also dishonest,' I said, 'the two together may make a formidable combination. But never mind. We're forewarned. I think I shall be even with him.'
That evening, at dinner in the saloon, the pea-green young man strolled in with a jaunty air and took his seat next to us. The Red Sea, by the way, was kinder than the Mediterranean: it allowed us to dine from the very first evening. Cards had been laid on the plates to mark our places. I glanced at my neighbour's. It bore the inscription, 'Viscount Southminster.'
That was the name of Lord Kynaston's eldest son—Lady Georgina's nephew; Harold Tillington's cousin! So this was the man who might possibly inherit Mr. Marmaduke Ashurst's money! I remembered now how often and how fervently Lady Georgina had said, 'Kynaston's sons are all fools.' If the rest came up to sample, I was inclined to agree with her.
It also flashed across me that Lord Southminster might have heard through Higginson of our meeting with Mr. Marmaduke Ashurst at Florence, and of my acquaintance with Harold Tillington at Schlangenbad and Lungern. With a woman's instinct, I jumped at the fact that the pea-green young man had taken passage by this boat, on purpose to baffle both me and Harold.