Under ordinary circumstances Howard's passenger would not have seemed a formidable personage. In spite of the disfiguring blue goggles, his clear-cut features were distinctly prepossessing. Moreover, his air of helplessness would have appealed to the maternal instinct of any female five years old, and led her to constitute herself his protector. Only a guilty conscience accounted for the shrinking with which Agatha advanced to welcome him.
"How do you do, Mr. Forbes." She spoke in the repressed tones she imagined befitting age, and her fluttering heart imparted a suitable tremolo to the greeting.
Forbes snatched off his hat and put out a groping hand. His abundant brown hair, cut severely close, showed a well-shaped head. His voice, too, was in his favor.
"Have I the pleasure—"
"I am Miss Kent." Agatha took his hand and quickly released it. "Bring Mr. Forbes' suit-case, Howard. I suppose you'd like to go to your room, Mr. Forbes. Shall I help you?"
She put her hand through his arm to guide him, her face aflame. Yet her youthful zest for adventure was asserting itself and there was something contagious in Howard's delight over actually embarking on the anticipated conspiracy. Agatha's breathing steadied. She caught Howard's eye and flashed a smile at him. The experience was like a plunge into a mountain stream, exhilarating after the first shock was over.
"This is very good of you, Miss Kent," Forbes was saying as they ascended the wide staircase, side by side. "I shan't be quite so helpless as this when I've once got my bearings." His voice took on an interrogative note. "I hardly suppose you would have known me?"
Agatha threw him an appreciative glance. "I think it would be out of the question for any one who had known you to forget you."
"Really?" He seemed pleased. "But surely I have changed."