“And almost as quietly, so you heard what I said.”
“Oh, I hear lots, but I reckon it a good plan to keep my mouth shut,” grinned the other.
“Exactly what you have failed to do,” thought Medenham, though he nodded pleasantly, and, with a “So long!” passed out of the yard. Smith went to the exit and looked after him. The man’s face wore a good-humored sneer. It was as though he said:
“You wait a bit, my dandy shuffer—you ain’t through with his Countship yet—not by any manner o’ means.”
And Medenham did wait, till nearly seven o’clock. He saw Cynthia and her companions come out of Gough’s Cave and enter Cox’s. These fairy grottoes of nature’s own contriving were well worthy of close inspection, he knew. Nowhere else in the world can stalactites that droop from the roof, stalagmites that spring from the floor, be seen in such perfection of form and tint. But he fretted and fumed because Cynthia was immured too long in their ice-cold recesses, and when, at last, she reappeared from the second cavern and halted near a stall to purchase some curios, impatience mastered him, and he brought the car slowly on until she turned and looked at him.
He raised his cap.
“The gorge is the finest thing in Cheddar, Miss Vanrenen,” he said. “You ought to see it while the light is strong.”
“We are going now,” she answered coldly. “Monsieur Marigny will take me to Bristol, and you will follow with Mrs. Devar.”
He did not flinch from her steadfast gaze, though those blue eyes of hers seemed definitely to forbid any expression of opinion. Yet there was a challenge in them, too, and he accepted it meekly.