"Be easy, Monsieur. Be gentle. Don't hurt her mouth again——" He bowed as was befitting to an old customer. "Good-night, Monsieur. Will you be dining to-morrow?"
"That depends, mon ami. Perhaps——"
"I think you will, M'sieur. At that table——" With a smile he pointed to the usual one. "I will order your dinner myself—for two."
II
It had not occurred to Hugh before; for some reason or other it had not even entered his mind. And then, with a sudden crushing force, the two names leaped at him from the page of the register at the Magnificent, and for the moment numbed him.
"Doris Lethbridge," and then, a dozen lines below, "John Fordingham." What a fool, what a short-sighted fool, he was! Good God! did he not know Fordingham's reputation? And yet, through some inexplicable freak of mind, this development had not so much as crossed his brain. And there had he been sitting at his club for over an hour, in order to ensure seeing the Colt in her room and avoid any chance of having a scene downstairs.
Dimly he realized the clerk was speaking.
"Number seven hundred and ten, sir; and since you have no luggage, we must ask for a deposit of a pound."
"I see," said Hugh, speaking with a sort of deadly calmness, "that a great friend of mine is stopping here—Mr. Fordingham. When—er—did he take his room?"
"Mr. Fordingham?" The clerk glanced at the book. "Some time this afternoon, sir. He is upstairs now; would you like me to ring up his room?"