“Oh, yes, monsieur. Monsieur Edwin is always with her.”
“He is a—pleasant boy? Do you like him?”
“Oh, yes, monsieur. Every one likes Monsieur Edwin. He is tres gentil.”
“Does he speak French?”
“Oh, yes, he speaks French extremely well—and German, too, but I do not know German. I cannot tell whether he speaks it well—not so well, I mean, as French. He speaks French better than madam, his mother.”
Basil could not explain why he asked these last questions, but no doubt there was a momentary suspicion in his mind that the boy with Mrs. Harcourt was not his cousin. The fact that the boy, according to the testimony of the concierge, was able to speak French and German, was calculated to dissipate any suspicions he might have entertained.
Had Basil known that Mrs. Harcourt was aware of his being in Europe, the suspicions would have been revived, but this he did not know, as he did not meet Wilkins the dramatist again.
Unable to get any clew to Mrs. Harcourt’s whereabouts, Basil was compelled to leave Paris unsatisfied. He left a note with his cousin’s bankers, in which he wrote: “I regret very much that I am obliged to return to America without seeing you and Edwin, but in the state of my uncle’s health I cannot stay longer. I came over on a little business, but that was soon accomplished, and I wished incidentally to see you—some time, perhaps, I may be more fortunate. Now I can only say good-by.”
When some time later Mrs. Harcourt received this letter at Geneva she breathed a sigh of relief.
“The danger is over!” she ejaculated. “Thank heaven!”