Mensmore had been expecting this question. He was prepared for it.
“Mrs. Hillmer is my half-sister,” he explained. “I have not seen much of her since—since an unhappy marriage she contracted some years ago.”
“Indeed. Is her husband alive?”
“I can hardly tell you. I believe so. But she does not live with him. She is well provided for, but it was partly on account of this matter that I came to the Riviera for the winter. To tell the truth, I quarrelled with her about it.”
“Ah, well. Her troubles need not affect Phyllis and you, except to give you warning. And take my advice. Never interfere between husband and wife. However good your motive, ill is sure to come of it.”
In the growing dusk Sir William Browne did not note his companion’s embarrassment in discussing this topic. Mensmore was essentially an honorable man, and he detested the necessity which forced him to permit false inferences to be drawn from his words. Yet there was no help for it. He was compelled to suffer for the faults of another.
It was relief when the dressing-bell for dinner allowed him to escape to his cabin.
There was quite a large gathering for dinner. Places like Genoa contain a number of highly interesting personages if the visitor discovers them. The British race produces a richer variety of human flotsam and jetsam than any other. These derelicts come to anchor in out-of-the-way parts of the earth. They seem to have been everywhere and have done everything, while the whole world is an open book to them.
Thus there was no lack of variety in the conversation, and, as usual in such assemblies, it dealt more with persons than with incidents.
Phyllis had arranged the guests, so it may be taken for granted that her lover was near her—in fact, he sat exactly opposite. The lady he took in to dinner was the wife of an English doctor, and the British consul at the port was Miss Browne’s table companion.