"Oh well, we had been teaing at Rumpelmayer's with that pretty little Mrs. Allonby—awfully jolly little woman—"
"Eh? what?" growled the Anarchist, an angry flame in his eye.
"—She's in an awful hole, that little woman. Turned out of her hotel, and can't find fresh quarters anywhere. I was recommending Villa Gilardoni."
"What do you mean by turned out?" cried the Anarchist savagely.
"The poor little woman took it very pluckily—she told it as a ripping joke. She doesn't suspect your Turbia friend's tongue may have had a hand in it"—an inarticulate snarl broke from the Anarchist—"the hotel people simply told her to clear out, bag and baggage. She's been to every blessed hotel in Mentone this afternoon, and found them all crammed full——"
"Ah! And you were discussing that lady's affairs with Miss Somers in the gardens?"
"I was showing Miss Somers the way to the Villa. I say, what the deuce is the matter, de Konski?"
"Nothing, nothing. Except that I must be off or lose the last lift. Goodnight. If only—remember."
But there was another and very different if to what the Anarchist suspected in the young man's heart. If Agatha had only stooped to pick him up! Her cruelty spoilt all. He had certainly asked much of her, he acknowledged to himself, but less would have been nothing, for love, he told himself, gives all or nothing. While the countess——
On reaching his hotel he found a letter from his mother, and read it more than once. What there was in that letter more than in countless others she had written, he could not say; it was tender and warm and intimate with a sort of gay comradeship infrequent in maternal letters—but so were all her letters. Still, in this he found something that brought the water to his eyes, and the old childish confidence and comfort to his heart, and made him very glad and thankful to have signed that paper in the afternoon. There was a little folded slip from a sister inside the envelope. "So glad you are coming home," it said; "mother is counting the days. She is not quite herself lately, and seems to be fretting for you."