Jean shook her head demurely.
“We shall all be back at Staple to-morrow—the Countess excepted. You can take her.”
“Then the supper must be to-night,” replied Burke serenely.
“What are you doing in town, anyway?” asked Jean. “Is Judith with you?”
“No. Came up to see my tailor”—laconically.
He crossed the box to arrange matters with Lady Anne, and before the curtain rose on the last act it was settled that they should all have supper together after the play.
Later, when Burke had once more resumed his seat next to Jean, Madame de Varigny, whose hearing, like her other senses, was preternaturally acute, caught a whispered plaint breathed into Nick’s ear by Lady Anne.
“Now isn’t that provoking, Nick, darling? Why on earth need Geoffrey Burke have turned up in town on our last evening? I was hoping, later on—if you and I were very discreet and effaced ourselves—that Blaise and Jean might settle things.”
Madame de Varigny’s eyes remained fixed upon the stage. There was no change in their expression to indicate that Lady Anne’s plaintive murmur had at that moment supplied her with the key of the whole situation as it lay between Jean and the two men who were sitting one each side of her.
But the following evening, when, the Staple party having left town, she and Burke were dining alone together at a little restaurant in Soho, the knowledge she had gleaned bore fruit.