"No. I'll show you the message, if you'll hold this coat for a second or two."
"Come to Mrs. Carmac's room."
"Sorry, I've just seen Mrs. Carmac, and am making for the quay."
"I insist," she said, with a very creditable effort at a coquettish glance. "We can't stand talking here. Come. I'll not keep you more than a minute."
Raymond, veritably astounded by her manner, as well he might be, followed her without demur. He was elated, almost excited. A new and entrancing vista opened before his mind's eye. Were the difficulties that yet loomed so large about to vanish into thin air? If Yvonne proved gracious, what else was there to bother him? Each upward step on the creaking stairs seemed to be another rung in the ladder of fortune. He did not know it, but he had reached the highest point of the climb when he stood in Mrs. Carmac's room on the first floor.
Yvonne had hurried on ahead, and put a warning finger on her lips when she cried aloud, ostensibly to her mother but actually for the secretary's benefit, "Mr. Raymond is coming in. He has news of Madeleine, and I didn't want to wait outside lest Peridot should pass. I mean to avoid Peridot until, by one method or another, I get in touch with Madeleine."
The explanation was not only plausible but strictly accurate. When she crossed to the window and made the agreed signal to Tollemache she might well have been looking out to learn if Peridot was coming down the Toulifot.
Lorry and his companions were already on the way. They had seen the meeting in the doorway, and assumed that Yvonne had drawn Raymond in her wake. Nevertheless her stanch friend and devout lover was watching the window. He grinned broadly, and waved a hand. Why, she knew not; but her pulses throbbed. Some remarkable thing was going to happen. She felt it in the air.
Then she focused her thoughts on what Raymond was saying. He had produced the telegram, the text of which ran exactly as he had given it.
"As I may be absent all day," he added, "I took the liberty to tell Duquesne to wire the result of his interview with Mademoiselle Demoret to Mrs. Carmac. You have his address, and can communicate with him without waiting for me."