Thus it came to pass that Rosamund’s furs and frills graced the same chair in the Foreign Office that Warden had sat in when he interviewed the Under Secretary. She was charmingly anxious in manner. Though of high rank in the Government, the Under Secretary was young enough to be impressionable; he was clearly a dandy; such men are the easiest to subjugate.
“In the first place, Mrs. Laing,” he said, when she explained her earnest wish to communicate at once with Captain Warden, “you will not misunderstand me if I ask what measure of urgency lies behind your business with him. We officials, you know, like to wrap ourselves in a cloak of mystery with red tape trimmings. Yet I promise you I shall match your candor if possible.”
“Well—perhaps I ought to begin by saying that—if not exactly engaged—Captain Warden and I are very dear to each other. We were engaged once, years ago. But I was young. I was forced into marriage with another, who is now dead.”
Rosamund made this ingenuous confession with the necessary hesitancy and downward eye–glances. The Under Secretary was sympathetic, and delighted, and envious of Captain Warden’s good fortune. There could be no doubt about these things, because he said them.
“That being so, I know a good deal of his private affairs,” said Rosamund demurely. “I knew, for instance, that he might be summoned to West Africa at any moment, but he is such a scrupulously precise man where duty is concerned that he would actually go away without telling me anything about it if ordered not to take any one into his confidence.”
“Something of the kind has happened,” admitted the Under Secretary.
“Ah, then, he really is in Africa, and if I write——?”
“I am sorry, but I fear I have misled you. He is not in Nigeria. When last I heard of him he was at Rabat.”
“Where is that?” she cried, genuinely surprised.
“On the West Coast of Morocco.”