She smiled—and there was less of bitterness in the smile this time.
“No,” she answered frankly. “I didn’t. I thought you’d come to pay a kindly visit to the outcast.”
“I came,” he said simply, “to tell you—if you need telling—that I don’t believe one word of this ridiculous story which is flying round, and that I’m going to fight it with every bit of influence I can bring to bear.”
“You dear!” replied Ann softly. A wan gleam of amusement flitted across her face. “But it’s true, you know—Tony and I did stay at the Hotel de Loup together.”
No remotest glimmer of doubt, or even of astonishment, showed itself in the steady glance of Tempest’s “heather mixture” eyes.
“Did you?” he returned placidly. “Well, I suppose neither of you has the sole monopoly of any hotel in Europe.”
“Then you’re not shocked?”
“Not in the least. I conjecture that some accidental happening drove you both into an awkward predicament. Feel like telling me about it all?”—with a friendly smile.
Ann felt exactly like it. There was something in Brian Tempest—in his absolute sincerity and his broad, tolerant, humorous outlook on things—which attracted confidence as a magnet attracts steel, and before long he was in possession of the skeleton facts of the story, and had himself, out of his own gifts of observation and sympathetic intuition, clothed those bare bones with tissue.
“And what do you propose to do?” he asked, when Ann ceased speaking.