"Good Heavens!" I cried. "What a fool I've been!"
Swiftly I ran over in my mind my first night with the Scollay household. Had I ever been told Jock was a son? No, I had simply assumed it, and gone on that assumption without ever once thinking anything more about the matter. And so, with this impenetrable curtain between me and all possibility of guessing the truth I had gone on uselessly groping.
"Fool!"
A harsh voice startled me. It was Jock, gazing viciously up at me and talking guttural English now. His face was still framed in the circle of the torch, and as I looked at it now I realised that the truth had actually been written there all the time for a closely observing eye to read. This man's features differed vitally from the Scollays' and, especially, there was no cast in his eyes.
"Fool!" he snarled, "yes, you have been a damned fool, you Hobhouse! Ach, if I had known, you should have been a dead fool!"
"You mean if you hadn't been made a bit of a fool of too?" I suggested.
He was a brave man and a useful man to his country, but the German boastfulness would out.
"Ach, but I should have found you out soon! Me, you would have found out never!"
His eyes rolled round our party and I could see curiosity overcoming even his bragging.
"Who did tell you?" he demanded.