“What?” demanded Storm, aghast. How much did George know? “Invented what luncheon?”
“Don’t you remember when I dined here with you——God! Was it only last Monday night?—and Leila told us she had lunched that day at the Ferndale Inn, when in reality she had been to the city? I repeated that remark, because I could scarcely believe my ears, but she stuck to her little fib. I did wonder at your surprise for I had seen you both in town at noon.”
“You had—seen us both?” Storm repeated.
“Yes. I was going through Cortlandt Street coming out of the Leicester Building and saw you standing there staring after her as though you had seen a ghost,” George explained innocently. “I started to hail you and tried to cross, but a line of traffic got in the way and when the street was clear you had disappeared. I meant to tell you that night but I didn’t.”
“Why, that’s so! It must have been Leila, after all, whom I saw.” Storm weighed each word carefully. “I wasn’t sure, you know, she passed me so quickly, and when she spoke that night of having been to the Ferndale Inn I naturally concluded that I must have been mistaken; it couldn’t have been she I saw. It did not occur to me for a moment that she was telling even a little white lie, for Leila has never kept anything from me in all her life, George.”
He spoke with a deliberate emphasis, striving desperately to eradicate from the other’s mind the thought that he had been aware of her deception. Confound the fellow! Why had he, out of all in the city, been the one to witness that unexpected meeting! His silence later was significant, too. Had he an inkling of Storm’s state of mind that night?
“I see. Couldn’t imagine why she should have kept her little expedition to herself, but it wasn’t any affair of mine, of course.” George spoke with an elaborate carelessness which did not seem wholly convincing to the critical ears of the other man. “Funny it should have deceived you, for she didn’t take me in for a minute, she fibbed so—so clumsily, bless her! I thought it probably some little joke she was planning, but your approaching birthday never occurred to me. It is odd, isn’t it, that we should have talked of old Jaffray and that trout stream when you walked to the station with me later?”
“Leila knew how I had set my heart upon it,” Storm returned. It would do no good to revert to the topic of the lie. Reiterated explanation of his attitude would only deepen any suspicion which George might still entertain. To ignore it, to pass it by as a thing of no moment, was the only course. “Do you remember that she complained of feeling ill that night?”
George nodded.
“That was the first thing I thought of when Millard broke the news to me, after I could begin to think at all,” he observed. “She must have had a warning that one of those attacks was coming on. I spoke of it to her, as you may recall, but she denied it; afraid of worrying you, I suppose. To think that it should have come the very next night when she was alone and helpless!”