"Keep it up?"
Desmond smiled again. "It's probably somewhat delicate ground, but the thing has its whimsical aspect. You see he, perhaps, naturally, regards Miss Ratcliffe as the incarnation of honor and every other estimable equality, which is apt to make her rôle rather a difficult one. I have no doubt her mother has asked you very tactfully not to say anything that might render it harder still if you ever come across Lister, which, if she has any hand in his arrangements, is most unlikely."
"There is a suggestion of that kind here," and Ormsgill gazed at him very grim in face. "You mean that they have not mentioned me to Lister."
"I should consider it very improbable," said Desmond dryly. "As I ventured to suggest, you have, perhaps, after all, no very great cause for regret."
Ormsgill, who said nothing, rose and walked several times up and down the shed, and then moved suddenly towards the door. He spoke a few words to the sentry, after which he sat down and waited for some little time, while Desmond smiled once or twice as he watched him. Then the door was opened, and a black sergeant who appeared in the entrance signed to Ormsgill.
"Dom Clemente can spare you a few minutes," he said.
Ormsgill rose and followed him across the compound and up the veranda stairway into a room where Dom Clemente was sitting alone. He looked up when Ormsgill came in.
"You have some complaint—of the accommodation we have provided you with?" he said.
"No," said Ormsgill, "my business is of a very different nature. You asked me last night, Señor, if I had anything to say to you. I wonder if you will now listen to me for a little while?"
His companion's gesture signified compliance, and Ormsgill proceeded, speaking with a terse directness which, as it happened, served him well. When at last he stopped Dom Clemente looked at him with a little dry smile.