“I am most fortunate,” she explained, with a smile which betrayed her real gratification at their meeting. “I depart to-morrow morning by the first train, and I was fearing that I might not encounter you to make you my adieux. That would have been most impolite to friends so cordial as you have been. And, besides, I am so very happy that I would wish to be very amiable to all the world. All the embarrassments that I feared have been swept away, and everything has arranged itself happily.”
Sir Clinton's face lost the hard expression which it had borne a few moments before.
“I hope that it is my good fortune to be the first to congratulate you on your approaching marriage, madame. You have all my wishes for great happiness.”
Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux's manners did not allow her to throw up her hands in astonishment, but her face betrayed her surprise.
“But it is marvellous!” she exclaimed. “One would need to be a sorcerer to know so much! It is quite true, what you say. Now that Staveley is dead, I can espouse such a good friend of mine, one who will be kind to me and whom I have been adoring for so long. I can hardly believe it, I am so happy.”
Sir Clinton smiled.
“And you would like everyone else to be happy too? Then you will perhaps begin at once. Go upstairs, madame, and ask to see Mrs. Fleetwood. Say that I sent you. And when you see her, tell her that you married Staveley in 1915. You do not need to say any more.”
Rather puzzled, but quite anxious to do as he told her, Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux bade them both farewell, and they saw her ascending the stair. Sir Clinton gazed after her.
“Easy enough to guess that riddle. One gets a reputation on the cheap sometimes. Her association with Staveley; then her complete separation for years; then this sudden need to meet him again in order to side-track some ‘embarrassments’: obviously she had married him, and needed a divorce if she was to marry again. I wish most problems were as simple.”
“And, of course, if she married Staveley in 1915, as she seems to have done, he committed bigamy in marrying Mrs. Fleetwood?”