“Where did you hear all this—this nonsense? You said nothing about it last night.”
“Lady Raynham told me. She rang up half an hour ago—before you were down—to ask if by any chance we had had any news of him,” replied Gillian gently.
Magda pushed away her plate and, leaving her breakfast unfinished, moved restlessly across to the window.
“There’s nothing about it in this morning’s paper, is there?” she asked. Her tone sounded apprehensive.
Gillian’s eyes grew suddenly compassionate.
“Yes. There is—something,” she returned, laying her hand quickly over the newspaper as though to withhold it.
But Magda swung round and snatched it from her. Gillian half rose from her chair.
“Don’t look—don’t read it, Magda!” she entreated hastily.
The other made no response. Instead, she deliberately searched the columns of the paper until she found a paragraph headed: Disappearance of the Honourable Kit Raynham.
No exception could reasonably be taken to the paragraph in question. It gave a brief resume of Kit Raynham’s short life up to date, referred to the distinguished career which had been predicted for him, and, in mentioning that he was one of the set of brilliant young folks of whom Magda Wielitzska, the well-known dancer, was the acknowledged leader, it conveyed a very slightly veiled hint that he, in particular, was accounted one of her most devoted satellites. The sting of the paragraph lay in its tail: