Marion glanced at her curiously in the mirror. 'He was certainly very gallant and delightful,' she went on. 'No one can be more so than Captain Beckenham. Yonder man downstairs is of a different order, though. Still, I have no fear your fine steel will fail in meeting his heavy blade.'
As Marion spoke a kitchen-maid knocked at the door to announce supper, and the two went down into the little dining-room. Mine host, all smiles and delight, stood within the doorway. He was one of those innkeepers who made travelling a pleasure; the comfort and happiness of his guests and not his own gain seemed to be his one consideration. By the window stood the newcomer. He turned as the ladies entered. From the amount of self-importance he contrived to put into his greeting Marion understood at once Zacchary's hostile feeling.
With the slightest lift of her eyebrows Simone followed her mistress to the place allotted and sat down. After acknowledging the stranger's bow with a cold salutation, Marion turned her attention to the innkeeper and then to her supper. Her sense of weariness and lurking anxiety was weighing on her spirits. Nothing but the eager face of her host as he hovered by her chair, pressing dish after dish for her acceptance, would have made her break the silence that, in her present mood, was the only comfort possible.
Meanwhile the stranger had turned his attention to Simone, and presently, as the good cheer of food and wine stole over Marion's senses, easing a little her mental strain, she became aware that a very fine play was going on across the table. The countryman could make no headway against Simone's cool wit. He fell back on the resort of his kind: boasting. Mine host's wine, too, in the quantities the man drank, would have made a braggart of the humblest spirit.
Thus it was that Marion, her eyes on the June roses that overran the grey walls of the inn, flaming red in warm sunset, suddenly became aware of the man's rising voice, of his flourishes as he talked of himself. She brought her cool, level gaze to bear upon his heated face. At the moment he was explaining for the benefit of the innkeeper his own very great impatience as compared with other folk who wandered aimlessly on this dull planet.
'Show us thy merit, then, sir,' broke in the smiling innkeeper. 'Give us chapter and verse!'
'Ah!' said the other, bridling, ''tis a secret mission.'
Simone slightly shrugged her shoulders and turned to her custard.
''Tis an interesting word—secret,' she remarked idly.
''Tis a word not much liked hereabouts,' interposed the landlord with a look for his guest. ''Tis main near to Dorchester for that.'