Straker's tact was at a disadvantage, but his delicacy instantly suggested that if Miss Tarrant was not disconcerted it was because she didn't know he knew. That made it all right.
"He's in the seven-fifty train."
A light leaped in her eyes; the light of defiance and pursuit, the light of the hunter's lust frustrated and of the hunter's ire.
"You must get him back again," she said.
"I can't," said Straker. "He's gone on business." (He still used tact with her.) "He had to go."
"He hadn't," said she. "That's all rubbish."
Her tone trod his scruples down and trampled on them, and Straker felt that tact and delicacy required of him no more. She had given herself away at last; she had let herself in for the whole calamity of his knowledge, and he didn't know how she proposed to get out of it this time. And he wasn't going to help her. Not he!
They faced each other as they stood there in the narrow walk, and his knowledge challenged her dumbly for a moment. Then he spoke.
"Look here, what do you want him for? Why can't you let the poor chap alone?"
"What do you suppose I want him for?"