“Oh, hush! Hush!”
Claire glanced round her affrightedly, as though the very leaves and blossoms had ears to hear and tongues to repeat.
“One never knows”—she whispered the words barely above her breath—“where he is. He might easily be hidden in one of the alleys that run parallel with this.”
“The skunk!” muttered Nick wrathfully.
“What’s that?”
Claire drew suddenly closer to him, her face blanching. A sound—the light crunching of gravel beneath a footstep—had come to her strained ears.
“Nick! Did you hear?” she breathed.
A look of keen anxiety overspread his face. For himself, he did not care; Adrian Latimer could not hurt him. But Claire—his “golden narcissus”—what might he not inflict on her as punishment if he discovered them together?
The next moment it was all he could do to repress a shout of relief. The steps had quickened, rounded the corner of the alley, and revealed—Jean.
“We’re mighty glad to see you,” remarked Nick, as she joined them. “We thought you were—the devil himself”—with a grin.