“Certainly I did”—triumphantly. “And I gave him a five-pound note to jog his memory. I don’t think he’ll omit to hand on the information as desired. I should say”—glancing at the clock—“that we might expect Coventry along at any moment now.”
Cara half rose from the table. Her face was very white, her eyes dilated with horror.
“Perhaps—perhaps he won’t come—won’t believe it,” she stammered faintly, with a desperate hope that she might be speaking the truth.
Brett smiled unpleasantly.
“I think he’ll believe it all right. I gave Bradley very clear instructions. But, in any case,” he added easily, “I’d prepared for the possible contingency that the old fool might bungle matters.”
“How?” Her voice was almost inaudible.
“Why, then, I should simply have steamed away with my honoured guest on board. After a day or two’s trip at sea, I think there’d be no question Ann would accept me as her husband. The position would be an even more awkward one than her predicament at the Dents de Loup. Her presence on the yacht could hardly be explained away as an—accident”—significantly. “But I preferred my first plan—it entailed less publicity”—with a short laugh.
Cara sprang up, her eyes blazing. In the torrent of scorn and anger which swept over her at his duplicity—at the nonchalant recital of it all—the embarrassment of her own situation was temporarily lost sight of.
“Brett, I think you must be absolutely devoid of any sense of right or wrong! I never heard of anything more utterly fiendish and heartless in the whole of my life. Have you no conscience, no decent feeling, that you could plot and plan to ruin a woman’s happiness as you would have ruined Ann’s? Oh! It’s unbelievable! I think you must be a devil incarnate!”
He rose too, his eyes smouldering dangerously. The veneer of polished mockery had dropped from him suddenly.