"But you are provoking! And not at all polite." Lanyard looked apologetic and said nothing. "Very well, then! if you won't answer when I ask you prettily, I presume I shall have to tell you all I know about yourself."
Lanyard pricked up his ears. "The little bird again?"
She solemnly nodded. "It is industrious; every day it brings me news of this and that."
"And it tells you what of this?"
"Enough to make you what I styled you a moment ago: a mystery."
"Is it permitted to ask, how a mystery?"
"Assuredly. To begin with: It is now six months since you settled down, apparently to vegetate in this dry climate."
"You distrust appearance?"
"Always when so far out of character. It is not like Michael Lanyard to become static all at once. But here you live quietly, in the cheapest decent lodgings, you have no callers, you write few letters, you see no friends—but one—and spend no money on yourself; only when you are seen in public with Madame de Montalais you seem indifferent to expense. You see—?"
"I see one thing plainly: that it were well to put salt on the tail of that little bird and wring its damned neck."