“Yes. But they’re a deal more nearly related nowadays than they were before the war. Staying the night at a hotel with a man pal is sailing a trifle near the wind, don’t you think? Anyway, it’s carrying a flirtation rather far.”
The syphon, beneath Eliot’s sudden pressure, squirted out a torrent of soda. Brett’s eyes scintillated as he watched the slight accident.
“You’re implying a good deal, Forrester,” said Eliot gravely, as he dried his coat with his handkerchief.
“Oh, I know what I’m talking about. I was there, you see, and caught the little limb of Satan red-handed, so to speak—though, of course, she doesn’t know it.” Then, as Eliot remained stonily silent, he proceeded loquaciously: “It was last June or thereabouts. I was stopping a night or two at the Hotel de Loup, up in the mountains above Montricheux—know it?”
“Yes, I know it,” replied Coventry mechanically.
“There wasn’t a soul in the place except me—out of the season, you know. And one beastly cold night, when I marched into the hotel after a confounded long tramp, who should I see but a man I knew saying good-night to an uncommonly pretty girl at the bottom of the stairs. I kept tactfully out of the way till the good-nights were over, as I thought at first he must have committed matrimony while I’d been abroad and that they were on their honeymoon. I never got the chance to ask him, as he bolted past me down one of the corridors before I had time to speak. So I took a squint at the hotel visitors’ book and found they’d registered as ‘G. Smith and sister’! That settled it. The chap’s name wasn’t Smith, and I happened to know he’d never had a sister—either by that name or any other! So I just chuckled quietly to myself and mentally congratulated him on his good taste—the girl was quite pretty enough to excuse a slight deviation from the strict and narrow path.” He paused to light a fresh cigarette, his eyes, between narrowed lids, raking the other man’s impenetrable face. Throughout the telling of the story Coventry had sat motionless, like a figure carved in stone. Only, as the recital proceeded, his eyes hardened slightly and his closed lips straightened into a stern, inflexible line. Having lit his cigarette, Forrester airily resumed the thread of his narrative.
“What follows is really rather interesting—the long arm of coincidence with a vengeance! My revered aunt brings me to Oldstone Cottage and sends me into the garden on a voyage of discovery to find Miss Lovell. And I find her asleep in the hammock—the identical young woman I’d seen up at the Dents de Loup with Tony Brabazon.”
“Brabazon!” The name seemed jerked out of Coventry’s lips without his own volition. A curious greyish pallor had overspread his face, and behind the hardness of his eyes smouldered a savage fire that seemed to wax and wane, struggling for release.
“Yes, Brabazon,” replied Brett carelessly. “It seems he and old Sir Philip and Aunt Susan and Miss Lovell were all stopping at Montricheux. I’d no idea my aunt was staying there, or I’d have run down and looked her up. But we hardly ever correspond. My address is always such a doubtful quantity”—with a laugh. “You see, I’m liable to dash off to the ends of the earth at a moment’s notice, if the spirit moves me.” He rose, tucking the puppy under his arm. “Well, I must be getting back. Aunt Susan will be on tenterhooks till she sees this youngster.”
Coventry accompanied him to the door and signalled to the groom who was walking Brett’s horse slowly up and down.