"Which of course you will not follow! Well, keep me informed of what goes on. I wish I could see all your people, I think I should find a key to the riddle. I never liked Deering."
"I have no doubt you could read between the lines. As to Deering, now that I am away from him, I am half ashamed of my suspicions. It is rather absurd to imagine that a man of his standing would risk his reputation for a passing whim."
"But he doesn't risk it," said Lady Gethin. "He is not infringing any social law in England; unknown, doubtful Americans, neither rich nor highly-placed, are beyond the pale. If that Lambert had any sense, he would give his daughter a little money and marry her to some solid bourgeois. He could easily arrange it, I fancy."
"Well, good-night," said Glynn, with an odd feeling of irritation. "I shall call and see you before I leave, and do not hesitate to give me any commission—my taste in gloves and even in ribbons is not to be despised."
"Take care," was her valediction.
The next day brought Glynn a few lines from Lambert, which struck him as expressing more uneasiness than was intended.
"I have no right to ask you to return if it does not suit you," he wrote, "but I hope you will. I feel in need of your counsel. I have had wonderful luck for years, and now I'm afraid it's turning. Then I am not as young or as strong as I used to be; and one way or another it would cheer me up a bit to have a talk with you."
Had Glynn had any hesitation as to revisiting Paris this letter would have decided him. He sent a few lines in reply, and then applied himself steadily to clear up all business engagements as far as possible, to secure a long holiday.
He called on Deering at his club, and was told that gentleman was travelling abroad, and that letters addressed to his town house would be forwarded. Lady Gethin was not at home to receive his adieux, but wrote him a quaint characteristic line of warning.
Having performed all his duties, Glynn found himself in the mail train for Calais one evening about a fortnight after he had left Paris, with an irrepressible sense of exultation, of keen delight at the idea of returning to what he knew in his heart was a scene of danger, determined to enjoy to the uttermost the pleasure of Elsie's companionship, so long as he saw no sign of consciousness on her part. Life had so few moments of bliss that he could not and would not deny himself the draught that chance had offered.